


Digital Stockholm

by ebonynemesis



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Eventual Happy Ending, Exhibitionism, Heavy Angst, Inadvertent voyeurism, Introspection, Kyuhyunnie Siwonnie and Minho make brief appearances as well, M/M, Masturbation, Psychological Drama, RPS - Freeform, Slow Burn, stress induced anxiety, unavoidable mentions of ex-members
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-09-22 14:39:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9611864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebonynemesis/pseuds/ebonynemesis
Summary: Yunho has no idea why there are concerning videos of Changmin on his laptop, but it might just unhinge the volatile and complicated leader-seongbae-hyung/equal-partner-collaborator role he’s maintained with Changmin for the last decade.Set at the end of 2014, a psychodramatic get-together fic.





	1. Ensnarement

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this is a work of fiction and I have no intention of making any representation that these events might truly have come to pass. 
> 
> Any and all opinions expressed in this work do not represent the author's opinions or that of the characters' real-life counterparts.
> 
> Some minor details are altered from real life.
> 
> Self-beta'ed.

Yunho locks himself out of his mobile phone six weeks after he moves to his new place.

He glances at the mountain of boxes simply labelled ‘technology’ in scribbled hangul and then at the disconnected landline dangling from the wall socket, the corded phone lies beside it on the ground, gathering dust.

Yunho groans in frustration, he can’t recall any contact numbers off the top of his head anyway. Might as well find his laptop.

The mental voice chiding him sounds like Changmin second day into live prep, a glimpse of the brat who arms himself with snide comments and outbursts of abrupt physical violence. He can almost feel the chill of Changmin’s phantom glare at the back of his neck — the silent demand to know why Yunho is treating his new place like a hotel room and why his things are allowed to gather dust in boxes instead of unpacking straight away and having it readily available at a situation like this — all conveyed with a tone of sharp exacerbation.

Yunho sighs as he struggles with the masking tapes sealing the boxes shut, he’s never going to be rid of his work-wife’s presence, even in the sanctuary that is his own home.

As with the natural order of things, Yunho doesn’t manage to get to his laptop until he’s opened every single box marked ‘technology’. Sitting amongst ripped pieces of cardboard Yunho grabs for the laptop with sticky hands, only to realise that its batteries have ran out of power in the six weeks of disuse. Yunho fumbles around the box for the charger. _Of course you packed it with something else_ , inner Changmin lectures him, _how many times did I tell you to schedule your packing day? How do you manage to get anything done in your state of utter chaos?_

Yunho finds the charger four boxes later — wrapped around a reel of CDs with its end tied to a bunch of other cables like a pit of knotted breeding snakes that he once saw in an animal documentary. Yunho pulls, but the entire abomination drags along with the laptop cable. He hears a snap somewhere and prays that it's not the laptop cable being broken in the chaos.

Several severe wire cuts on his fingers later, Yunho detangles his power cord. When he finally turns on his laptop, he’s faced with another dilemma — there’s no internet.

Yunho sits back on his heels, he’s trapped in this apartment unable to contact the outside world unless he:

  1. venture out of his apartment and call someone from a payphone; or
  2. borrow a phone from a neighbour.



Either option seems to end with him being mauled by sasaengs and/or having to move out the very next day. He can always drive to the office and spend the night there, but this is the first break he’s had in weeks, and Yunho feels a marrow-deep tiredness that makes even the thought of picking up his car keys nauseous to him.

He can survive no internet. It’s just for one night — less than ten hours until his manager comes to pick him up for work — of which most would be spent sleeping. Besides, this way nobody can contact him for these hours and he would be able to have some true undisrupted peace.

Yunho crosses the chaos of the living room and gets a beer. This is good, take a breather, go unplugged for one evening, _the world isn’t going to fall over just because I’m uncontactable for one night._

He immediately conjures up at least five situations where he needs to access his email or phone. He paces around the room, pressing the beer bottle to his forehead before turning off the lights and sits down against the boxes in front of the blue glow of his laptop. Yunho opens the bottle against the side of his shoe and ignores the Changmin-sounding voice criticising him for the crude manner in which he uncapped the beer. He logs on to his laptop to watch something.

Unfortunately,he can't find anything on the laptop except for work. Sound files and choreo videos and schedules and meeting minutes. Yunho takes a swig of his beer, after a quick second search to confirm that there are indeed no source of entertainment on his work laptop, Yunho slumps back, disappointed. He might as well practice and test out the new soundproofing for his floor. He turns on the webcam to record his form when a screenshot catches his eye.

The webcam displays the most recent recording, and instead of a practice video, it looks like a headshot of Changmin. Yunho double clicks it and the image maximises to fill his screen. Changmin, wearing his glasses, face illuminated by the pale blue of the LCD light from the screen, pops into view in the otherwise unlit room which Yunho recognises is the studio/study area in Changmin’s apartment.

Changmin never touches Yunho’s things. He’s always been mindful when it comes personal belongings. It may be due to that one incident when he accidentally shut Yunho’s flip-phone and wiped Yunho’s high score in _Snake_ , or it may be because Changmin has always been not-so-subtly hinting for Yunho to be more mindful of Changmin’s things. Yunho has never seen Changmin touch his laptop let alone record anything with it.

Yunho clicks the play button. After a minute or two of still image, Yunho suspects that the video is broken, until he realises that it's a recording of Changmin reading something on the computer.

Changmin barely moved, aside from the occasional bob of his Adam’s apple or a blink or two. Yunho scrolls forward. The video was most likely recorded by accident. He notices a change in Changmin’s expression and resumes playing the video at normal speed.

'... Probably some ugly fuck in real life… ' Startled, Yunho hits pause as a reflex. Changmin wore a frown of deep disdain, his lips curved away from his teeth in a snarl, and it’s rare to hear him speak with so little regard. Yunho plays the video from the beginning to watch in earnest.

 

The first ten or so minutes appear to be Changmin just looking at the screen, no typing or mouse-clicks. Twelve minutes or so into the video, Changmin reached over and adjusted the camera until it zoomed in on his face, and spoke directly at the camera.

'I don’t know how you got this email. And frankly I’m not interested. I’ll probably get manager-hyung to change my email address after this anyway—' Here Changmin carded his hand through his hair, he wasn’t wearing any make up and his hair was unstyled, sticking up naturally in all directions. '—You sasaengs are always coming up with new and creative ways to bring grief to our lives and I have to give you credit for the effort. This is extortion at best and I should really report this to the police, you should be arrested.' Changmin jabbed at the screen, 'You should go to jail.'

Changmin stood up and paced around the room, Yunho can hear muttered curses from Changmin, then he threw himself back into his seat in front of the camera.

'I know what kind of people you are. You’re probably some ugly fuck in real life who stalks outside our dorms and whores yourself out so you can afford this kind of destructive lifestyle. What the fuck are you trying to achieve? You always come up with the most bullshit reason for your obsession. It’s never you like our music, or the work we do, or our products. Some of you don’t even like the way we look! Instead you have this uncontrollable urge to find out every tiny facet of our lives, what we eat, when we shit, who we fuck. You are all sick!! You need therapy!'

Changmin pinched at the bridge of his nose between his eye sockets and the video ends abruptly.

 

Yunho pries his own fingers off from where they are gripping his laptop, kerbing the urge to get into his car and drive to Changmin’s place and demand an explanation. He empties his beer in one prolonged gulp, the coolness of the tart liquid somewhat assuaging the chaos in his mind.

He stands up, walks to the window after circulation returns to his legs. A faint reflection of himself overlays against the lights from the city below in the floor-to-ceiling window,  semi-translucent and pale. Having spent most of the past few weeks holed up in a studio practising and relying on caffeine and adrenaline to stay awake for the past twenty-odd hours, it doesn’t really come as a surprise that Yunho looks like a ghost right now. Yunho brushes a visible vein under his eye, and meets cold condensed sweat on his fingertips.

His apartment is a forty minute drive to Changmin’s, and without his phone Yunho can’t confirm if Changmin is even at home. They haven’t seen each other for most of the day, and the last time they spoke it didn’t end on good terms. Changmin had stormed out of the office and disappeared from the building soon after. Uninformed of his evening plans, Yunho has no idea as to Changmin’s whereabouts unless he goes to work and calls Changmin from a work phone.

Yunho rests his forehead against the glass. Maybe he should go for a drive. The apartment is closing in on him, making him feel claustrophobic in the unfamiliar space. These strange rooms serve more as a residential address he fills in on his departure cards at the airports than an actual home to him, just an empty residence with boxes of unused stuff. A decade or so of constantly travelling around and countless hours spent in dance studios and live-rooms has made Yunho feel more relaxed lounging on the couches of the backstage waiting rooms than on his own sofa and napping in the backseat of the van rather than in his own bed.

_You are sick, you need therapy._

Changmin’s voice echoing that sentiment, Yunho zombies to the kitchen sink and turns on the tap. The sound of water running jolts him. He let the coldness flood over his fingers before he grabs a glass.

This is _Changmin_.

Changmin, who rips off labels on water bottles to ensure that the contents inside are safe before twisting their caps and handing it to Yunho; Changmin who religiously walks back and forth across any stage they practice on until he’s stomped on every inch of the stage floor and satisfied with its structural soundness; Changmin who whisks away any new phone Yunho gets and configures all the security presets before Yunho is able to even log on and sync his email; Changmin who refuses to use unbranded anything — including toilet paper. This is the Changmin who sent him disgruntled texts when he accidentally wore shoes inside the apartment back when they were living together; Changmin who turned the half eaten doughnut around so he could avoid biting where Yunho had bitten; Changmin who complained on TV that he suffered through thirst because he didn’t drink from water bottles other people’s lips had directly touched; Changmin who called the hotel concierge when he found a strand of hair on the pre-provided towels and made the hotel change all the linen in their room. This is the same Changmin who would scold Yunho right now if Yunho drinks this glass of unboiled and unfiltered tap water, this Changmin would never do anything as irresponsible as the likes of sending a video of himself cursing and ranting to an unsolicited email address.

Yunho pours the water from his cup. Worrying that Changmin will do something so irrational is stupid when out of the two of them Changmin is clearly the more cautious one. In fact, Changmin is more cautious that most people he know.

_If that’s true, then what is that video he just watched?_

Yunho scurries back into the living room, almost tripping over the contents of one of the boxes he had unpacked which are splayed across the floor, and opens his video player’s history.

The browser lists hundreds if not thousands of videos. Yunho recognises most of them: practice routines that he had recorded and sent to himself or to the dancers, records of video conferences he held with the Korean office or with AVEX while he was overseas, raw untouched video footage sent by the staff for behind-the-scene segments of their dvds, unfinished music videos the directors sent to him for approval. But amongst the familiar screencaps there are a few that Yunho doesn’t remember watching. He selects and drags them into a new folder, including the latest one which he just watched.

He opens each one of them in turn, eliminating the ones which look familiar. He’s left with a handful of thumbnails of Changmin in various poses. Yunho scrolls through them in stunned silence. Things aren’t adding up in his mind. Changmin couldn’t have had this much access to his laptop without his knowledge. Also, the timings were off. The videos look like they were taken from Changmin’s apartment, at night, or at least during Changmin’s off-time considering the unkempt disarray of hairstyles Changmin has in most of them. The exception being one of them where Changmin definitely looks more stage-ready, Yunho recognises that Changmin’s appearance is from a performance a month or so ago, and plays that video.

 

Changmin has shiny lips in this on. Ever since ' _Suri Suri '_ the stylists seem to have discovered that the ombre style compliments the plushness of Changmin’s mouth, and here they have coloured the inner part of Changmin’s lips just-bitten-red. The only reason why Yunho is noticing this now is because Changmin was licking his lips in the video, slowly, as if he were trying to get rid of the stain cody-noona had used on his lips to achieve that ombre effect. Changmin smirked at the camera and the glitter on his eyeliner caught the blue light of the screen and glinted.

'I knew you’d like that,' Changmin simpered. He adjusted his camera, stood up and shrugged off his jacket, laying it neatly behind him. He then proceeded to unbutton his shirt. More and more skin revealed itself as Changmin pushed the white frilled dress shirt off his shoulders, he still sported the fake tattoos stencilled for the performance on his neck and chest, as well as little marks where the tape for securing his mic was adhered to his body. Sweat glistened off Changmin’s skin and Yunho hunches closer to the screen as the shirt slid from Changmin’s forearm onto the floor. Changmin sat back down in front of the camera, one foot propped up on the armrest of his chair, smiling coquettishly, almost like he was drunk.

'Were you in the crowd today?' Changmin leaned back until his torso was in the shot in entirety, all the way down to the tight folds of skin on his abs, 'I tried to look for the ugly ones but it’s so bright up there you know, and hot, nobody ever tells you how hot floodlights get, especially if you’ve got ten directed at your body and you’re in a three-piece and dancing for the life of it and having to do thirteen fucking takes because the cheer was wrong or some fuck-up happend on stage or Jung Yunho thought it could be better. I’m there, being pickled in my own sweat, about to pass out from heat stroke, and he worries if the shot captured the faces of the dancers.' Changmin made a face. 'He should worry about himself for once, he should tape his jacket to his pants so the folds of fat don’t roll out of them, and do something about his face, he’s going to start coating the stage with his make-up if cody-noona puts any more powder on him.'

Ouch, Yunho winces, but the corners of his mouth curve into an inadvertent grin. This is familiar territory, because despite the harshness, Changmin’s snark is always tinged with a reluctant concern.

Changmin meanwhile continued. 'But you don’t care about Yunho, do you? I’m sort of glad, in a way, that you are only interested in me. At least you aren’t one of those people who believe that I should forgive and forget or leave my company and reunite with those assholes who fucked me over! You know who I’m talking about. I’m not saying their names. You are all a bunch of weirdos. You are the kind of fans that make all of the rest look bad. I saw one of their banners today, it was a _‘Jongshim_ ’ one as well, I would’ve grabbed it and stuffed it down their screeching throats if I could. Fuck those fangirls!'

Changmin rolled his chair closer, until he was staring into the webcam, the glitter on his eyeliner seemed to burn spots onto Yunho’s screen. 'You are no better, you all seem to think we owe some sort of allegiance to you just because you buy our albums and come to lives and think that we depend on you for our success so it gives you the right to do whatever you want. Oppa should live how you want us to live, and perform the way you want us to perform, with the people whom you want us to perform with.' He smashed his hand down on the desk, shaking the camera,  'You’re all a bunch of imbeciles. Can’t you see that you’re just a dot of data on a demographics graph?'

Changmin stood up and kicked off his pants. his legs equally sweaty as the rest of his body and his crotch suddenly taking up most the screen that Yunho cants away from the screen and grimaces at Changmin’s dark coloured briefs. Changmin’s fingers dipped in the band of his underwear and Yunho closes his laptop with fibrillating fingers.

 

He sits there stunned, muscles so rigid they feel ossified. In the middle of an ocean of computer cables and CD rolls, his laptop is the only source of light in the living room and it casts bizarre radiating shadows around him, stretching all the way to the undecorated walls. His sofa is still wrapped in plastic packaging, and right now it is reflecting the blue from his computer screen in rippled folds like the sheen of luminescent patterns on a tropical fish. The room feels unreal, the video he just watched even less so.

He replays it.

Same flushed ombre lips, same glitter eyeliner, same sweat-slick torso and same venomous words. Yunho restrains his left hand with his right one to curb the urge to stop the video and forces himself to watch til the end.

Thankfully, the video becomes entirely too dark after Changmin got up and blocked the light due to his proximity to the camera and Yunho only catches a glimpse of messy curls before the video ends.     

He pinches the skin between his fingers but no pain registers. Yunho stares at the computer willing his mind to accept the contents he just saw, twice.

Years of sharing a dorm with only one bathroom and countless occasions that required speed-changing backstage has left little to the imagination where their bodies are concerned. But this, this is not something Yunho is is ready to deal with.

_No, this affects TVXQ and you need to confront him about this. You need to drive to work and find out where he is and then go talk to him today. Right now._

Yunho stares at his computer instead, the video player minimised, various thumbnails of Changmin staring back at him.

He should at least have a survey of the extent of the damage before he does anything impulsive.

Yunho scoots over until he’s leaning against the leg of his sofa. The files aren’t time-stamped, but they seem recent judging by Changmin’s hairstyle and his features. From around last winter, Yunho estimates. Some of them have recognisable clothes which allows Yunho to place an approximate date for the time of the recording. Yunho didn’t even know Changmin had twenty-odd spare evenings since last winter.

Clicking on one that looked like it was filmed close to the first one Yunho had watched, Yunho braces himself, hoping that there’s no more nudity in this video.

 

An image of Changmin lying against very familiar pillows maximises. Yunho has crashed at Changmin’s often enough to recognise his bedding, Changmin was balancing his computer on his chest, then it adjusted as Changmin moved it and Yunho suspects that Changmin was recording from his tablet from the lack of a keyboard.

'Don’t involve Yunho.' Changmin implored. Changmin’s eyes looked puffy and sleep deprived. 'I don’t know how the fuck you found out about where his father works or Jihye’s school, but I’m asking you, no, I’m sincerely begging you, please don’t involve him or his family or my family or unrelated people.' Changmin’s voice was soft and breathless, constants stumbling over barely formed vowels. His Japanese teacher had taught Yunho to hear the clicks and the beats in Japanese and in the video Changmin was speaking Korean like that, almost like he was not familiar with the language.

'I know I was rude to you last video and I take back what I said about therapy, just, no one needs to know about this. Please don’t tell anyone. I’ll keep in touch with you I promise, and whatever you want me to tape…' Changmin bit his lips and a blossom of colour spread from where his teeth was imprinted in the skin, 'I’ll do it, as long as no-one else knows.'

'Well, this ends if you tell anyone about this anyway. Anyone.' Changmin said, as his head fell back upon the pillows and the video cuts out.

 

Yunho sits there clutching his laptop, wanting to break the screen.

The implication that this anonymous recipient of these videos is clued in on where Yunho’s father works and where Jihye goes to school is actually not that indicative of their identity — they’re basically common knowledge thanks to the power of the internet, social media, and incessant tablet journalism. It isn’t the first time nor will it be the last time his family is unnecessarily dragged into his gasoo life, and his father and Jihye are more than capable of protecting themselves. It just irritates him that they have to brace this kind of harassment because of him.

What’s infuriating is the fact that someone has been using Changmin’s protectiveness towards Yunho and his family to extort him. Yunho clutches his fists, just how long has Changmin been exchanging videos with this person, forced to respond because he was afraid of others getting hurt, what extent did Changmin go to in these videos to prevent Yunho’s family from being affected?

Yunho presses his thumb against his temple and his ring finger against his other, trying to pinch the ringing between his ears away. He did not expect to deal with something so severe when he decided to take this impromptu break away from the internet earlier in the evening. But now, now he’s unable to stop. He needs to watch all of the videos, tonight, one by one. He needs to know what’s going on.

He en-queues them all in his player, there’s no discernible order the videos appear in and Yunho doesn’t care at this moment. He’ll organise them later.

He clicks play. 

 

It’s a trespass into a space Yunho has never wanted to wander into. The videos are monotonous and repetitive and in most of them nothing much happens anyway, but with each frame, Changmin’s personal life unfurls before him like exotic blossoms he saw in Thailand, the heavy splash of colours drooping from viney shrubs, weighted with saturation, almost infectious with their vibrancy.

...Changmin with a towel draped around his head, sweating in his singlet, jabbing the screen until the entire video shakes from the force of his fingers...

...Changmin brushing his teeth and swearing through fluoride foam and the buzz of electric toothbrush, the entire image fogged up due to the steam in the bathroom...

...Changmin browsing, still, the edges of his features softened by the glow of the screen. His lips shadowed by stubbles…

...Changmin cut off half way when the video abruptly ends as he swiped the camera off of his desk...

...Changmin wiping his eyes, yawning, his head dropping and hitting the camera, the mic pops and Yunho grimaces from the sharp sound...

...Changmin with unstyled hair, sitting cross legged on his sofa in underwear, strumming tuneless notes that linger in digital echoes of Yunho’s laptop speakers, crackling with static…

 

By the time he finishes it’s well past midnight. Yunho finds his shirt drenched in sweat and himself heaving like he had performed a full-length live. He puts the laptop down onto the floor, stretches, and walks over to the window. It's moving into late autumn and the cold hovers over Seoul as the branches are all bare of leaves but the onset of snow is yet to be due, instead, patches of greyish frost dot the empty footpaths, refracting the amber of the streetlamps. Closing his eyes, Yunho breathes deep, like how his vocal coach taught him: controlled, from the bottom of his gut. He repeats the exercise until the hammering of his heart slows, getting more pronounced. The air in his apartment is dry and laced with the faint scent of dust and vacuousness. Yunho mentally counts beats until he adjusts in his own skin, until coherent thoughts about what he has just watched on his laptop start to form.   

Judging from the postures, the lack of a keyboard when the camera tilts down, and the glimpses of Changmin’s computer in the background, it’s likely that the videos were filmed from Changmin’s tablet. They varied in length, the shortest ones no more than a few seconds, a couple of them longer but disjointed, the longest one went on for two hours but was mostly Changmin doing nothing except browsing the internet.

Changmin addressed an anonymous person in all of them, alone in the privacy of either his apartment in Seoul or in his room in their Japanese residence. In most of them, Changmin was unkempt, in his sleepwear, or in some state of undress, and Yunho had to fast forward quite a few of them where things got a bit too naked for comfort. Changmin never mentioned the name or any indication as to the identity of the recipient of these video. In the ones which he spoke, he was always agitated, angry, complaining about some aspect of his life.

Except for one.

Yunho kicks the mess of computer cables and CD reels and stray hard drives that litter his floor to the edges of his living room. He rolls his shoulders and started performing his routine stretching which he does before dance practice. Stretching always calms his mind down, through isolating each muscle, challenging it until it screamed in pain, he’s able to concentrate on his body, and slow down his mind.

He clutches his ankles and welcomes the burn in his calves as he reminiscences the video he just watched no less than five times.

 

Changmin’s face without make-up was ethereal on the screen, even though it was marred by burst capillaries, dark circles under his eyes and a shadow of a stubble. He had long lost the baby-fat around his cheeks and his cheekbone and jawline were chiselled like an artist had filed it out from marble or smoothed it out with clay. He was in his t-shirt and boxers, balancing his guitar on his knees. his left hand was bandaged, stoppers taped to his fingertips, and the notes he played scattered discordant, echoing and tainting Changmin’s voice with dissonance.  

'I wish he wasn’t so slow sometimes, you know who I’m talking about. He’s always so stubborn!' Changmin’s left hand slid and the note he was playing slipped from the scale. 'He thinks that he’s doing the best thing for everyone. 'It’ll be good for your popularity Changminnie, also if things don’t work out then at least you have an out'.' Changmin mocked Yunho in a squeaky voice, taped fingers making little inverted commas like rabbit ears. 'I don’t know how someone could be so obtuse when he’s trying to be considerate. I hate it when he says things like this. 'In case things don’t work out', 'In case something happens'. I’m supposed to be the pragmatic one amongst us.' Changmin looked away, the desk light cast a gentle gleam of gold over his profile, illuminating the fine fine dusting of hair on his skin. 'It’s like he’s testing me on purpose, making me question us every day. Why can’t he just _understand_ and —'

Changmin wiped at his eyes, shoved his guitar off his lap so hard that it dropped onto the floor — the body of the guitar gave off a sombre ring, and he left the room. For several minutes there was nothing on the screen except the empty studio in Changmin’s home. Then he came back and his face looked washed but his nose was red and his eyes were puffy.

Changmin picked up the guitar again. This time the individual notes coalesced into a melody. Changmin was playing as the opening bars of _'Over' —_ an old song that had been dug out from the stash of reserve songs and rearranged into a solo for their new album.

Changmin seemed unable to continue the song after about twenty bars, he restarted from the beginning, but it was worse the second time. After the ninth or tenth time, Changmin buried his face in his hands and his shoulders quaked, quivering the tightly wound arms Changmin had drawn around himself.

When he lifted his head again his face was crawling with messy, shiny patches of tears. Changmin wiped his face, his eyes were completely bloodshot and the rims were crimson. He gasped a few ragged breaths to suppress the hiccup like sobs, and wiped his hands with a tissue.

Changmin took a few more breaths before picking up the guitar, each breath seemed to force out more tears from his eyes which he had abandoned wiping up. 'I don’t want this to be over...' He faltered, before burying his face in the curve of the guitar again.

When he collected himself once more, he played the song through perfectly, repeating the refrain again and again and again, until Yunho felt breathless himself, before finally turning off the webcam.

 

Yunho breathes through the burn in his inner thighs from the straddle stretch. He knows exactly when Changmin filmed that video. It was after they had the worst fight they’ve had this year. It hasn’t exactly been an easy year for him and Changmin, amidst juggling the stress of their Japanese activities along with their Asia tour came the impending conflicts regarding enlistment, and the tension carried over most of the year until it exploded around last month, right after Changmin had returned from his trip in Europe.

 

*

 

He had dragged Changmin into an empty practice room. Yunho turned on the light, and various reflections of him and Changmin surrounded them in a series of endless mise-en-abîme. Light bounced off from Changmin’s chestnut hair in various directions, Changmin pushed Yunho away irritated and turned his body from Yunho, looking at his own reflection in a mirror.

Yunho found a bench against a mirror and sat down, stretching his legs out. 'Can we please talk, Changmin? It’s important you tell me when you encounter this kind of decision…'

Changmin’s back stiffened, his back muscles tightening through his T-shirt. 'Who told you?' Changmin asked, 'How did you manage to find out a day after I decided my enlistment…' Changmin covered his mouth when he saw the look of surprise on Yunho’s face.

Yunho was finding it difficult to keep his expression in check, 'You handed in your application papers?'

Changmin nodded, his eyes darting around but seeming unable to focus on Yunho. 'Yesterday. I should’ve known manager hyung wasn’t able to keep the secret.'

'I thought you were with Suju all day—' Yunho managed.

'I was, Siwon-Hyung went with me. I’m taking the exam with him to get into the …' Changmin’s voice trailed off, he must have noticed the tension, Yunho thought, Changmin was unnaturally good at picking up little signs that indicated Yunho’s mood.

Yunho unclenched his hands which he only just noticed were knotted in his lap. 'So, you’ve decided.'

Changmin nodded.

'And you want to go to the police academy, like Siwon.' Changmin continued nodding. 'I thought we decided that you were going to do solo activities until I came back.'

Changmin shook his head. 'No, you decided. Even Kim-seonsaengnim was against that idea, if I took my mandatory service after you we’d be gone for a total of four years!'

Yunho raised an eyebrow, 'So?'

Changmin slammed his fist against a mirror, replicas of themselves in the mirror rippled, as if trying to escape from the tethered reality of the reflection in the mirror. 'So we can’t perform as Dong Bang Shin Ki until the twenty twenties. We’ll be a pair of old geezers by then! Do you still expect to pirouette during _'Rising Sun'_ , aren’t you afraid your kneecaps might slide out during the last part of the choreo and hit your front-row audiences in the face?'

‘I thought that we could have talked about—'

'There wasn’t more time!' Changmin said, 'I would’ve missed out on another year if I didn’t hand in the papers by this month and I want to get this over and done with. I want to waste as little time as possible.'

Yunho stood up, walked over to where Changmin was leaning against the mirror, and spoke to Changmin’s reflected profile. 'Have you ever considered the alternative?'

Changmin met Yunho’s gaze in the mirror. 'What are you saying?'

‘Maybe we say goodbye.' The words that left Yunho’s mouth were poison — the taste of glue tinged with the copper of his own blood.

Changmin was staring at Yunho like he couldn’t understand Yunho’s language anymore. 'You mean to say—'

'If you did solo activities for two years, you can build up a pretty decent base as an actor, and I have enough assurance from management that there’ll be a place for me on the board.' Yunho wanted to eat every single word that was leaving his mouth but they just kept effusing, 'And you know even if I didn’t have a place here, I could concentrate on charity work, or go work at a cafe or something. I’ve been told that I make an excellent—'

'What the fuck are you talking about?'

Yunho frowned at Changmin’s use of language, 'Changmin, we are at work—'

'Don’t change the subject.' Changmin snapped. 'Are you planning for retirement? Is that your alternative?'

Yunho folded his arms across his chest and met Changmin’s glare. 'It’s just a suggestion— '

Changmin backed away from Yunho slowly, 'A suggestion, what you are suggesting is that we end this, end us. Are you going to tell me all good things come to an end? We’ve had a solid run, five years as five and another five as two. We’ve churned out plenty albums and concerts to sate the fans, might as well leave before the act becomes stale. Is that what you’re saying?'

'Changmin I—' Changmin stumbled over his own feet and Yunho reached to steady him.  

Changmin blocked Yunho with a raised arm. 'Don’t.' He steadied himself and they looked at each other across replicate reflections of themselves, like they were looking across countless realities of the many 'what-could-have-been's.

Finally Yunho sighed. 'Well you’ve already handed in your papers, so there’s no point dwelling on that possibility anymore. I’ll review our schedules for the next few months and take that into account.'

Changmin glared at him, fist clenched. He suddenly smashed his fist on one of the mirrors, shattering it into even more fractured reflections. Yunho reached out for him, but Changmin turned around and ran out of the practice room without any acknowledgement or even an excuse.

Yunho dropped down and sat cross-legged on the floor. The room was freezing cold, like all the other practice rooms in the company. There were at least thirty of these practice rooms in the SM building, more now that they’ve moved to this bigger place. He spent more time in here than anywhere else in his life, memorising, practising, sleeping, arguing, sweat soaking into the wood and pain and exhaustion of his own body becoming the floor, a part of the room itself.

Yunho had sat amongst the abyss of reflections, the fractal pattern of the cracked mirror like the crater of a meteor. Glaring at the laces of Changmin’s blood seeping into the cracks in the mirror until the manifold fractured lights burnt blind spots in his retinae.

 

*

 

Changmin must have filmed that video right after that day. He was wearing the same t-shirt, still sported the post-Europe tan, his brows still shadowed by the remnants of his rage from earlier during the day, his hand was bandaged from the cuts he sustained when he smashed the mirror.

Yunho teeters into the bedroom, collapsing onto his bed as his well-abused muscles and joints ache and groan. He lets the exhaustion wash over him.

Less than five hours before he needs to get up and go to work. They are due to fly out to Japan in two days and the evening feels surreal: like his phone had died on purpose, or that the videos were arranged in a way that was the universe’s way of telling Yunho to pay attention to something he has neglected. A gargantuan building that had been camouflaged by the sky, its weight of existence hanging over his head, towering over him — a pylon of invisible mass.

His mouth is dry and his eyes are pressing against his sockets from hours of overuse. The videos left a migraine in his head, an almost supersonic ringing between his skull and a muted pain of discord in his chest, like someone has stuffed him with cotton.   

 _He made a video of himself crying_.

Changmin’s never had any stigma against showing emotion.  After all, he would cry in front of the camera on TV, in front of all of Korea, when he so much as loses a game of ping pong.

_But he’s stopped crying in front of you a long time ago._

Window shaped boxes of light emerges on his ceiling, illuminated by the streetlight outside, rippling above him in a kaleidoscopic eclipse. _You don’t cry in front of him anyway, it’s not something you really have any grounds to complain about. You’re just upset that some sasaeng fan might have footage of him crying and might circulate it around the internet._

It must be the stripping and the profanities that’s bothering him, Yunho thinks, _I’m not ok with that kind of behaviour being caught on camera. It’s a dire risk for our image. We’re band-mates after all, what he does might directly impact our work. That’s what bothers me._  

In the remaining wick of his consciousness, it doesn’t sound convincing at all.

 

*

 

Yunho wakes up groggy, face pressed into a wet patch of drool and jean zipper digging into his leg, apparently he slept in his clothes and on top of the covers.

Banging at his door. Yunho sits up, rolls his shoulders, a distinct strain in his neck. The noise is probably his manager at the door, waking Yunho up since he won’t be able to reach Yunho by phone. Yunho toes on his slippers before he suddenly recalls those videos of Changmin.

It’s as if a tube has been stuck down his collar and blasted dry ice on his back. A shiver crawls down his arm and he digs his fingers into his palms to suppress it.

The laptop now now sits accusedly in the middle of his living room, charging, deceptively innocent.

Yunho opens the door.

'I got locked out of my phone last night.' He informs his manager before his manager asks, his manager responds with an exaggerated eye-roll.

'How, how in the world did you manage to do that? You’ve had this one for years.' His manager seems more exasperated than impatient. So Yunho asks his manager if he can take a shower. His manager relents, waving him off. Yunho grabs a towel and dashes into the bathroom.

He blasts the hot water and lets it scald his skin. Ever since Japan, Korean showers just don’t hit the spot anymore. For a moment Yunho contemplates if he should have taken the laptop to the bathroom with him — he’s afraid his manager might find the Changmin videos by accident, before he realises that the chances of manager-hyung using his laptop, logging into his profile and using his webcam, if he decides to touch Yunho’s laptop at all, are very, very unlikely.

Yet, knowing that such content exist for Changmin in the first place makes Yunho want to shatter the laptop with a hammer.

Yunho scrubs his skin until his mind is engaged with the sensation of pain and the image of Changmin’s underwear-covered crotch and tear-streaked face are pushed to the back of his mind. _Pull yourself together,_ Yunho stops before he scrubs himself raw and draw blood from breaking his skin.

He puts on the the first pair of pants and pull-over he grabs from his closet before his skin is completely dry.

'I’m ready,' He announces with dripping hair and unbuttoned jacket. His manager looks up from where he’s leaning in the foyer, he’s already packed a gym bag for Yunho with his practice clothes and trainers. Yunho unplugs the laptop and charger and stuffs them into the gym bag. His manager raises an eyebrow.

'What is it?' Yunho hopes that it’s not too strange for him to take his laptop, he got locked out of his phone last night, so of course he would have had to use his laptop—

'You’re wearing mismatched socks.'  His manager points.

Sure enough, one of Yunho’s socks has a green trim and the other a grey one, but at least they are both navy.

'It’s the fashion.' Yunho rubs the ridge of his nose. His manager hands him his overcoat and gloves along with a judgemental stare.

'Life of a bachelor sure is different from when you used to live with your wife.'

'Changmin is not my wife.' Yunho says, realising whom his manager is referring to after locking the door behind him, then bites his lips because mentioning Changmin’s name makes him recall the videos and how resentful Changmin’s voice sounded in them.

He follows his manager into the elevator and watches the numbers for each floor light up as they descend.

 _Was I really that villainous?_ He had thought the snark was a front Changmin put on for the cameras but now it seems that vein of nastiness runs deeper than he expected.

‘Stop pressing the 'close-door' button, we’re here.’ His manager snaps and Yunho retracts his hand from where he’s been mindlessly pressing the buttons while he was lost in thought.

‘Honestly,’ his manager mutters not-so-quietly under his breath.

 

The chill lashes across his face as they enter the underground garage. Yunho huddles his way over to the van. Changmin is curled up, sitting in the corner of the backseat, gazing out the window although there’s only discoloured concrete pillars of the garage for a view. Yunho slides right up to him, and presses his thigh against Changmin’s, expecting a greeting.

Changmin glances at him and then turns back to staring out the window. Yunho remembers, with embarrassment, that they are supposed to be fighting. Changmin had stormed out of the meeting room yesterday and slammed the door in Yunho’s face. Yunho offers a smile and starts to move away, only to find that his manager has entered after him and is now squashed in to sit on his other side. He’s stuck in the middle of the back seat, wedged between Changmin and his manager. Changmin shifts subtly until he’s not pressed against Yunho anymore.

His manager is happily chatting away with Changmin’s manager, explaining how Yunho is locked out of his phone even though he’s well past the age of a legal adult and how even his own two-year-old daughter hasn’t managed to accomplish something of this measure of idiocy even though she plays with his phone all the time. Yunho observes Changmin out of the corner of his eyes, Changmin has a shadow of stubble above his lips and his eyes are puffy and bloodshot, he’s gaunt under his over-clothes, and his level of dishevel is accentuated by messy hair and finger-less gloves which just makes his digits look wispy and pale.

The car swerves and Yunho bumps into Changmin, who hits his head on the window. Changmin cradles his temple and groans a quiet almost inaudible 'Ow'.

Yunho takes the opportunity to reach for Changmin’s left hand, 'Changminnie, I’m sorry.' He says, rubbing Changmin’s palm and trapping him despite Changmin’s attempt to pull away. 'I wasn’t in my right mind yesterday and I shouldn’t have yelled at you and—' Yunho furrows his brows, he hadn’t yelled at Changmin at all, he was trying to explain something schedule-related when Changmin abruptly called him an idiot and left. 'I’m sorry for doing whatever idiotic thing I did and—' Yunho is unable to recall what he did to piss Changmin off, actually the vehemence seemed pretty one-sided, and yesterday has been scoured into a pale distant memory since last night’s discovery.

Changmin regards him with a slight glower, his lips pressed thinly together to minimise the quivering from the cold as he careens away from Yunho as much as possible. Yunho swallows, he really can’t recall what he had done to agitate Changmin.

Changmin lets out a breath, 'You don’t even know, do you? The reason why I snapped yesterday.'

Yunho replies sheepishly, 'It would really help if you clued me in, I am bad at the guessing game, I had been awake since Wednesday during our meeting and things are all fuzzy in my mind.'

Changmin shakes his head, his shoulders slouching slightly, 'It’s fine, I’m not angry anymore. I’m surprised you aren’t mad that I threw a tantrum.'

Yunho stretches over and pulls Changmin towards him, usually he takes up the corner spot and gives the warmer middle seat to Changmin who is more pervious to the cold. Changmin settles against Yunho, fingers digging into Yunho’s coat. Even his hair is cold, Yunho notices as Changmin tucks his head against the groove of Yunho’s shoulder.

He covers Changmin’s hand with his own and drags it onto his lap, Yunho encircles Changmin’s with his arms and rubs Changmin’s bicep as he holds Changmin tighter against his body. From this angle Changmin’s eyelashes are obscenely long, Yunho suddenly recalls the glint of glitter in those videos and tenses.

Changmin’s head snaps up, eyes wide, he looks as if he’s about to say something except words and breathing become mixed up somewhere inside and panic flashes across Changmin’s face. Changmin swallows, 'You really don’t know?'

Yunho alerts. _Is he going to tell me about those videos?_ Yunho bites the inside of his lips. No, of course not, why would Changmin know about the fact that he’s even aware of their existence? Is Changmin himself even aware that the videos are also on Yunho’s computer? Changmin’s grip Yunho’s hand tightens, his mouth parts, but the cold air has sneaked in through crevices of the car door, freezing Changmin mid sentence. Changmin’s Adam's apple bobs repeatedly, his eyes darting to his managers, and then at Yunho again.  

Yunho pats him on the shoulder. 'It’s ok, when you’re ready to tell me what’s bothering you, we’ll talk.' He says, as he pulls his hand out from Changmin’s grip and gives his manager and Changmin’s manager a reassuring nod, both of whom seem to be observing the two of them out of the corners of their eyes. Yunho turns his head away from Changmin and pretends to be distracted by the outside scenery. He senses that Changmin is still tense against him, and squeezes Changmin’s shoulder.

The barren Seoul rolls past outside in ghoulish gray, crawling with spidery, sprawling morning shadows. Yunho’s manager hands Yunho’s phone back, having reset the lock screen password. Yunho usually doesn’t look at his phone while he’s in the car, but he’s glad for the distraction.

The background of his phone is a photo of shirtless Changmin. Suju had set the image as his background as a joke but he hadn’t been bothered with changing it and had left it for several months. Now it stares at him jarringly, reminding Yunho that he needs to have a ‘Talk’, with a capital T, with Changmin later when they are by themselves. Yunho stares at the photo for a few more seconds, before going to his gallery and selecting a screenshot of _‘My Love from the Stars’_ and setting it as background.

'I thought you liked that photo of me.' Changmin says, startling Yunho.

Yunho shrugs, 'Yeah, as a joke, I think it’s time for a change. Besides, people might get the wrong—'

'Wrong idea, yeah, wouldn’t want to tarnish your hetero image. I get it.' Changmin snaps, grabbing the arm which is wrapped around his shoulders and untangles himself.

Yunho opens his mouth, 'Changmin-ah—'

'I’m fine, you can put whatever you want on your phone. My abs probably make you feel self-conscious about your manboobs anyway.'

'I do not have—' Yunho runs a hand through still-damp hair. 'Alright, you are right. I’m jealous, that’s why I wanted to change it.'

'Fine.' Changmin says through gritted teeth. He crosses his arms, stuffs his hands into his armpits and turns his whole torso away from Yunho.

Yunho looks at his manager who is steadily staring at the scenery outside and avoiding eye-contact with him, then at Changmin’s manager, who throws up his palms indicating that he doesn’t want to get involved. Yunho’s manager touches Yunho’s elbow and shakes his head slowly, silently asking Yunho to let it go.

Yunho slouches in his seat, defeated, and stares at his phone. Jun Jihyun glares back at him, hands on her hips with a deliberately condescending expression. Yunho wants to change it back to another picture of Changmin but doesn’t know if that’ll just make Changmin more angry thinking that Yunho is placating him. Out of the corner of his eyes he notices the rigid lines of Changmin’s taut shoulders. Yunho remembers the way those shoulders shook as Changmin sobbed into the guitar.

He glares at the phone in his hand, both loathing and delectating the fact that he accidentally locked himself out of it last night.

 

*

 

The acoustic guitar music echoes hollowly in his apartment. Yunho, having cleared up space on the living room floor by stuffing all his cables back into the semi unpacked boxes, now lies on the cold hard wood with his laptop open beside him. The semi-open plastic packaging and overflowing boxes casting shadows across his face.

He pulls out his phone, scrolls to Changmin’s number and stares at it against the darkness of the ceiling until the screen turns off. Changmin managed to dodge him for the whole day, Yunho couldn't find a moment alone with him. Changmin was always accompanied by someone, Suju, their dancers, their hoobae, the management, some other staff. It made Yunho aware of just how many people and distraction existed in the SM building. It wasn’t until he realised that the sun had gone down and began planning for dinner when he was informed that Changmin had left with Siwon earlier that afternoon.

It doesn’t explain why Yunho is hesitant to call him.

Yunho rolls on his side and shuts the lid to his laptop, the darkness descends upon him in the now unlit living room. The fan from the laptop is still running, blowing heated air against his ear loudly. Yunho flattens his palm on the still warm shell of the laptop.

There is a firm, bold line when it comes to Changmin’s private life that Yunho repeatedly draws in his mind. Ever since the split Yunho has made conscious efforts to give Changmin his own space and for them to have decidedly separate personal lives, however difficult that may be. Yunho has tried to stay out of Changmin’s space as much as possible. He never meets any of the girls Changmin dates, keeps contact with Changmin minimal during their holidays, and resists the urge to pry about the contents for those night-long talks Changmin has with Kyuhyun (though Yunho suspects that most of them are centred around Starcraft more than anything else).

The videos he discovered fall firmly on that side of the line that Yunho does not want to touch. The ever-shrinking sliver of space between the two of them that conserves what little refuge they have outside of their lives as gasoo. The precious breathing room the two of them have managed to squeeze out amidst a relentless lifestyle of decade-long facades and entirely too many camera lenses.

It’s a reminder to Yunho that the struggle to maintain some semblance separateness for him and Changmin is an insuperable battle.  No matter how careful they are, their lives keep bleeding into each others’ almost like a matter of inevitability. Their personal things keep ending up in each others’ residence. Their friends circles, even family, have become somewhat inextricable. Due to the demanding nature of their schedules, they find themselves falling asleep in each other's apartment ineluctably. And now, adding to all of this, is Yunho’s new-found knowledge of how Changmin looks when his emotions are so raw and denuded, Yunho feels the barrier crumbling in his mind, crushed by the weight of the revelation, entirely out of Yunho's control.  

Yunho rolls onto his back, staring at the shadows of the windows on the ceiling. He hums the tune of the refrain from _Over_ which Changmin played repeatedly in the video, and when he closes his eyes, Changmin’s puffy eyes and red nose float in his mind, until he can’t help but open his laptop and replays the video one more time.

 


	2. Manifestation

****When Yunho meets him at the airport, Changmin looks even paler with bloodshot eyes behind thick-framed glasses and the rest of his face hidden behind a white face-guard. He pointedly ignores Yunho’s attempt at making eye-contact as they check their luggage and pass through security in silence.

Changmin collapses onto a couch once they reach the VIP lounge and soon dozes off with his face buried in the hood of his jacket. Yunho is torn between ambivalent urges to stroke his hair and cradle him yet at the same time to shake him awake and demand to know what is happening -—to whom has he been sending these videos, what kind of demands are they making, why is he hiding the fact that someone is threatening him, why hasn’t he called the police already, why is he even responding to these threats instead of coming to the company or to Yunho to deal with this.

Instead, Yunho lowers his sunglasses over the bridge of his nose, perches in the club chair beside Changmin and studies him quietly until they are called for boarding.

 

On the plane Changmin falls asleep almost immediately. Yunho pushes Changmin’s newly cut fringe back and presses his palm against Changmin’s forehead. Changmin nudges Yunho’s hand out of the way before turning and curling up against the window-shade, his head falling into the enclave of the window.

Assured that Changmin is not sick, Yunho puts his headphones on and listens to the audiobook of _‘Byakuyako’_ to get into the Japanese mindset.

It’s been one of his favourites ever since he watched the movie adaptation with Changmin, during their hiatus, on the floor of their shared apartment, passing a bowl of popcorn between the two of them over bottles of beer. He liked the sombre undertones of the doomed love story, but Changmin had complained that its pacing was too slow and the plot predictable.

Changmin likes the ultra-violent action-heavy movies such as ones by Quentin Tarantino and Takashi Miike. Recently he downloaded ' _Kokuhaku’_ and made Yunho watch it with him, which unsettled Yunho with its gratuitous gore and jarring violence. Yunho found it quite difficult to stomach the depiction of so many deaths of children on screen. But the story was profound and conveyed an interesting message. However, Changmin had turned off the movie half-way, claiming that he can’t watch a scene with someone spiking beverages with poison in Yunho’s presence — that it was like eating wagyu in front of a herd of cows. Yunho didn’t know if he wanted to punch him or pull him into a hug.

Light escapes from the gaps around the window-shade and Changmin shifts away from it, burying his face in Yunho’s shoulder. He has heavy shadows under his eyelashes, the jut of his cheekbones angular beneath sallow skin.

Changmin snores, mumbles something in his sleep and cuddles up to Yunho’s arm. Yunho tugs a strand of Changmin’s hair away from his eyes. And switches to listening to the concert version of _'Over'_ instead.

 

*

 

‘Ok, let’s take a break.’ Sam-san calls over the loudspeaker system. Yunho wipes the sweat that has gathered on his brows as he heaves in gulps of much needed breath. Their choreographer hands Yunho a bottle of water, Yunho starts to bow in thanks before he catches himself.  

‘Good work,’ He tells Yunho as Changmin swipes the bottle from Yunho’s hands and uncaps it for him. However, when Yunho reaches for drink, Changmin takes a swig instead.

Their choreographer laughs. ‘Changmin-san is quite lively today,’ he says as he allows himself to be dragged away by Changmin to join the rest of the dancers.  

Yunho responds with a nod even though they are both gone. In the last few run-throughs of the song, he’s noticed a minute delay in Changmin’s movements — a discord in his rhythm which indicates fatigue, and though unnoticed by their dancers and their choreographer, quite a few mistakes were made due to Changmin having thrown off the timing. Changmin is chatting with the dancers now, his face animated but his hands dropped by his side like they are weighted.

Yunho hops down from the stage to go find Sam-san. Out of the corner of his eye he catches Changmin glancing his way when his leaps. Sam has permed his hair and it juts out from beneath his cap in ochre curls. He beckons Yunho over to show him the recording.

They spend the next couple of minutes discussing blocking for the song. Yunho looks over at the stage to see Changmin and a dancer attempting a back-to-back lift. Changmin has his knees bent as he links his arms through the dancer’s elbows. Changmin seems to be having trouble lifting the dancer, but the dancer turns the table on Changmin and hefts him up easily, Changmin’s long legs flailing as he’s uprooted.

Sam grins. ‘Quite lively today, that one.’

Yunho excuses himself and leaves Sam to prepare for the next take. He joins the gathering on stage as they part for him naturally. Changmin lets go of the dancer he’s performing the manoeuvre with and gives Yunho a cautious look.

They have quite a few new hires this year and that dancer is one of them. Yunho has forgotten his name, it’s Ken-something, Kenichi, or maybe Kentaro. He looks panicked for a moment but Yunho merely gives him a smile and dismisses him. He retreats. As a matter of fact, all the dancers have dispersed, leaving him and Changmin isolated in the centre of a deceptively empty stage.

‘Training?’ Yunho grins. Changmin shrugs, his face unreadable, half covered by the face-guard, and he lowers his head slightly so his eyes are hidden behind his fringe.

‘Why, you want to give it a try, old man?’ Changmin’s tone is intentionally light.

Yunho barks out a laugh. ‘I’m not going strain your back like that, Changminnie, if we are going to go for training carries I prefer something like this.’

He sweeps Changmin’s legs out from underneath him, shoves his left shoulder against Changmin’s waist and hoists until Changmin is slung across his shoulders.

Changmin yelps, his breath knocked out of him from the sudden movement.

Using the momentum Yunho squats low, swings Changmin until one of Changmin's hips roll over Yunho's shoulder and the rest of Changmin follows. He grabs and catches Changmin’s waist with his right arm as Changmin tumbles from the drop. Changmin reaches out by instinct to lock his arms around Yunho’s neck. They end up in a dip position with Changmin barely hanging on, having narrowly avoided landing on his ass on the stage, his feet struggles to find purchase, sliding across the wooden flooring.

A droplet of sweat rolls from Yunho’s forehead and lands on the white of Changmin’s face-guard. Changmin’s eyes are wide and the visible parts of his face are flushed, especially his ears.

They hear cheering and clapping from the dancers from the side of stage. Changmin pushes him away and rights himself, before punching Yunho in the gut.

Changmin clearly hasn’t caught his breath because there’s not even a quarter of his usual strength behind the punch. Nonetheless, Yunho doubles over for theatrics. Sam-san is calling for them to gather in order to run through the song one more time. And as they get into position Changmin kicks Yunho in the shins lightly, causing Yunho to bite back a snigger.

They make no mistakes in the next runthrough.

 

*

 

The practice ended on a high note, so their Japanese manager takes them out for dinner at a discrete izakaya in Chuo that has a private banquet room upstairs accessible via a flight of very steep and narrow staircase. Changmin orders share-platters for himself and turns down sake for beer instead. Their dancers, Sam-san and some stage crew are also there, chattering about the upcoming concert. Proper rehearsals haven’t yet started everyone is still at that buzzed stage where the live-tour sounds more exciting than exhausting. Yunho churns out an excuse about the condition of his voice and foregoes alcohol, instead he grips his cup of ocha with interlaced fingers, figuring out a way to bring up the ‘Talk’ with Changmin.

Changmin sidles up to Yunho, takes a look at what’s in front of him, and laughs as he clinked his beer bottle to Yunho’s teacup. 'I’m not mad anymore Yunho-hyung, I can’t help it if you are still in love with Jun Ji-Hyun noona, even though my goddess will always be better.'

'Isn’t Han Ga-In-sshi pregnant now?'

Changmin covers his ears, 'Shush, I’m still in denial over her marriage.'

Yunho chuckles. In the amber light of the izakaya Changmin irradiates almost as if he were a light-source unto himself — slouched on his side, loosely encircling his beer with his fingers and hair unbrushed. Yunho catches a faint scent of backstage shower on Changmin, the grassy scent of portable shampoo he uses, contrasting to the pineapple one from home.

'How are you feeling—' Yunho starts, and bites his own lip at how redundant and stupid it sounds.

Changmin cocks his head. Yunho expatiates: '—Because if, you know, you are too tired, or need a break, or have something you need to get off of your chest—' He must be either getting drunk on sake-fumes or the tea is spiked with spirits because he’s not making any sense even to himself.

Changmin swallows. _Here it comes,_ Yunho braces mentally, and refrains from wiping the sweat from his palms.

'Why is Jaejoong-hyung’s number in your phone?'

Yunho straightens, shocked. Silence blankets the two of them — conversation from staff and colleagues as well as other noises from the izakaya petering away as they hold each other’s gaze.

'You looked through my phone?' Things start adding up: why his phone was locked, the tantrum Changmin threw on the day Yunho discovered those videos, Changmin’s recent bout of strife with him. The drumming of his own pulse invades Yunho’s hearing as sweat pricks at the nape of his neck. The room seems to brighten from its dim, intimate ambience.

'It was ringing the other day and you were in recording so I picked it up. It was manager-hyung so I told him to call later. As I hung up I saw the list of missed calls and—' Changmin rambles in Korean. A few people glance their way including Sam-san — they rarely conversed in Korean in front of their Japanese staff. 'I didn’t mean to pry. But why, why is it saved in your phone and why haven’t you blocked him?'

'He changed numbers recently.' Yunho says, wanting to gulp down the tea in his cup despite the fact that it’s still steaming hot. 'Someone gave me his number and I haven’t spoken to him, Changmin, I just didn’t want to—'

Changmin sets the bottle of beer from his hand down on the table, the glass clattering from his unsteady hold, 'Someone, gave you his number?'

Yunho nods. Then freezes when he realises his mistake in admission to that fact, because the ones in their company who have contacts with those three, and their mutual friends, and really just about everyone in the industry, are all well aware of the circumstances and have circumvented the topic for years.

'Who, gave you, his, number?' Changmin stresses each syllable quietly with pointed pauses in between. Yunho recognizes the raspiness as the iceberg tip of Changmin’s rage.

'... Yoochun did.' Yunho says after a long silence.

'So you also have Yoochun’s number as well, do you? And you talk to him, to the point where he updates you on their contact information—'

‘It’s not like that. I’ve had his number since 2012 when his father passed away.'

Changmin empties his bottle, swallowing gulp after foamy gulp without pause, uncaring that beer is dribbling onto his neck and shirt. After he finishes, he slams the bottle down and poises there, sitting on his heels. Yunho doesn’t even know ‘seething-in-rage’ is a physical description until now as he notices a bubble of saliva at the corner of Changmin’s lips.

'Changmin-ah—'

'Is this how they know? Every single time we release something they time their products to be released in the same month. Are you—' He tightens his fingers around the neck of the empty beer bottle, 'are you _telling_ them?'

'No!' Yunho snaps. 'Use your head, Changminnie! How could I possibly do that, I haven’t spoken ten words to them since they moved out and most of it had been civilities—'

'But they have your number, and you have them, as contacts, on your phone.' Changmin’s voice cracks, 'And you exchange — you exchange civilities! You are _civil_ with those conniving—'

'His father passed away! And it was years ago! Changminnie what did you expect me to do?'

Changmin glares at him. His eyes are so wide that there are whites all around his black irises. The rest of their team are watching them, everyone trying to be as still and inconspicuous as possible. ' _Ignore_ them! It’s the _least_ you could do. Are you going to go around forgiving every single asshole and backstabber in the whole world? Make a shrine for mass-murderers? Why are you being some kind of martyr—'

'Changmin—' Yunho stands up, The ceiling isn’t high enough so he has to slouch. He looms huge in the too small, too crowded room. 'Can we talk about this calmly, without losing our head?'

Changmin jumps up as well, so quickly that Yunho worries that Changmin might put a hole through the paper ceiling with his head. 'No! Who gave you Yoochun’s number? Come on I know they all changed their numbers in 2009, someone had to.'

Slouching makes Yunho aware of the buildup of strain in his body from travel and then rehearsals. His bones feel distended underneath his skin, pulsating, aching. 'Changmin, come on, what are you going to do?'

'I’m going to rip the bastard to shreds! I will get my screwdriver and stick it in their skull!' Changmin kicks the empty beer bottle in front of him. It rolls across the table and knocks over other cups, heated tea and shochu hissing as they splatter across the table. The rest of the dinner party shuffle back from the table in alarm.

Yunho grabs Changmin’s arm. 'That’s enough. We can have an adult conversation about this later but you need to chill.'

Changmin seizes Yunho’s collar. 'Tell me who it is that gave you his number.'

Their manager also rises, he tries to separate Changmin and Yunho but the difference in height renders it an impossible endeavour. ' _Maa, maa,_ ' He said in japanese. 'I don’t know what you are going on about, but why don’t we all sit down and—'

Yunho turns and shakes his head silently, his manager closes his mouth. Changmin doesn’t appear to have heard their manager at all. He twists Yunho’s collar with both hands. 'Jung Yunho tell me who gave you their number!' He demands in Korean.

Yunho pries Changmin’s hands from his collar. 'It was years ago Changmin, I don’t remember who it was, and plus I can’t have a conversation with you being this emotional, we’ll talk when you are fine with—’

'Why would I be fine with this! I’m not fine with this! Why would I _ever_ be ok with this!' Changmin stumbles back, almost tripping over his own feet. His knees wobble and Yunho worries for a moment that he might hurt himself. But when he reaches out his hand Changmin bats it away. 'I’m not ok, I’m not ok with this.' He say, stuttering and breathless, ‘I’m not ok’ he repeats, looking around the room at the slack lipped faces of the rest of their party, abruptly turns and runs down the stairs.

 

A clatter, and the cry of a wait-staff. Yunho hears Changmin’s mumbled apology. He turns to follow Changmin, his manager stops him. 'Do not be so abrash! If you go out there you’ll be headlines tomorrow! What did you do to him?'

'I, manager-san I need to find him. I’m not sure if he’s going to be—'

Their manager studies him, then nods resolutely, turning to address the rest of the staff who are huddled against the wall avoiding the banquet table, : 'Sam-san, can you please—'

Across the room, their stage-producer waves his hand: 'Go, that boy looks like he needs assistance.'

Yunho and manager hurry down the stairs, Sam-san calls out from behind them, 'Better leave via the back door!'   

 

Fortunately, as it is quite late into the night, the place is deserted downstairs, with only the wait-staff present. After learning that Changmin had caught a cab, Yunho's manager calls the company to arrange for transport.

Yunho lists the places Changmin might go as they wait for the car to come around. 'We need to check the studio, and AVEX headquarters, and the dorm, and—’

Their manager stops him. 'Yunho-san, go home.'

'I can't do that!' Yunho says, 'You saw how he was, what if he goes off and does something—’

'He won’t.' Their manager, a whole head shorter than Yunho, rises on tiptoes to ensure that he can look into Yunho’s eyes. 'He won’t. He’s always been more sensible than you, and even if he flies off in rage he’s not going to do something regrettable. I have enough faith in him to vouch for that. If anything, I’m more concerned for you if you start aimlessly searching for him this late into the night. We’ll start the manhunt if he is still missing tomorrow morning.’ He reaches up and pats Yunho on the shoulders. ‘My word of advice, Yunho-san, would be to talk to him only after he’s calmed down. Go back to your dorm, if he is home, let him approach you.'

Yunho topples, slumping onto the sidewalk, not caring that the concrete is chilly and damp and he is only wearing one single layer of pants. _'Kuso_ , I fucked everything up, I really did.' He affronted with his head buried in his arms, 'I caused this. I’m the worst, I’m shit.'

His manager strokes one hand down the slope of his shoulder. 'I'm sure it'll be fine when you talk to him after he has calmed down. And you need to stop learning swear words in Japanese in case you miscue on stage.'   

 

In the car Yunho shields his eyes from the glare of the cityscape. He silently relishes in his secret hate for Tokyo. His loathing for the city, though well concealed, leaves him reeling in disgust sometimes.

He’s on a warpath of intransigent expectation ever since he came to this city of thirteen million foreigners and unpredictable weather. The worst days in his life manifested in Tokyo, and the city dampened his best ones with its asphyxiating humidity and smothering rain. The city is too bright, too fast, too breathless, heat waves overbearing within its sprawling streets leaving Yunho suffocating in his own skin.

The worst is that the city changes people — instils in them a twisted desire for for higher apartments, faster cars, bigger concert halls and brighter, larger neon billboards. Yunho blinks to force out the tightness behind his eyes. He’s lost friends to the city and what it promised, and almost lost himself in the process.

He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his text messages with Park Yoochun, through the stripped conversations and the week-late delays between each message. Yoochun sent him a selca of the three of them in Hawaii a year or two ago. Three foreign yet familiar faces grins at him, bleached by the sunlight, and Yunho turns off the screen in a rush of repulsion.

He’s convinced himself that this is the right thing to do, and he’s deliberated about this enough times over to accept the fact that it’s better for him to lay down past grudges and forgive in order to forget. He hadn’t counted on such an adverse reaction from Changmin. What’ll happen if he found Yoochun’s number on Changmin’s phone? Yunho knocks his forehead against the window and watches the heat from his skin form an expanding circle of condensation against the streetlights on the highway. He’s had nightmares in which Changmin leaves him - projections of irrational, unsubstantiated fear - as Changmin has made it more than clear where his loyalties lie since the very beginning.

But Yunho would still wake up some nights, during those dark months, sweat soaked and gasping, with the image of the four of them leaving him behind, exiting stage right behind steel curtains that Yunho could not claw through.

Does Changmin dream the same dreams? Of Yunho leaving him, of standing alone on the stage, spotlight blinding him, staring into a void with no audience and singing into the silence?

Yunho opens his chat history with Changmin, the conversations always appear disjointed as he talks with Changmin via email and text and skype as well as some chatting apps. Some of Changmin’s texts are so badly articulated they hardly make sense. His volubility degrades with the amount of alcohol he consumes. One evening he sent twenty texts to Yunho basically tracking the status of an ill-fated shot-glass as it became a prop in a game of ‘balance-a-shot-of-soju-on-your-face’ amongst Changmin and his friends (the shot-glass, after tumbling off the faces of half of Changmin’s friends onto laps, and tables, and chairs, and sometimes the floor, finally shattered when Minho tried the challenge leaning out of the balcony and dropped the shot-glass onto the sidewalk twenty storeys below, Yunho was genuinely impressed by the sturdiness of construction). Yunho’s own texts are riddled with typos and incomplete sentences, Yunho scrolls back as far as his phone will let him, the disjointed and scrambled messages losing meaning as he reads them and tries to recall the context of the situations.

You can be next to someone all this time and still feel so distant to them. Yunho presses his finger against a selca Changmin sent him recently, Changmin’s eyes striking in the dark through the grainy image. He zooms in until he can see nothing but Changmin’s irises on his screen, pixelated and beyond recognition, and wishes that he could see more.

 

Yunho doesn’t return to the residence straight away. Instead he detours to the gym in his apartment complex and works out until his muscles shoot bolts of soreness through his body. He flexes in front of the mirror, he’s never going to be as chiselled as Changmin, but, Yunho tenses his shoulder, he can put on bulk in places where Changmin will remain ever lanky.

He procrastinates, takes his time in the shower, even blow-drying his hair before he decides to return to the apartment.

 

The lights are off and Yunho does a quick search after he takes off his shoes. Changmin hasn’t returned home. Yunho lets out a breath — it’s close to midnight and the day has been too eventful and exerting for Yunho to have energy left for yet another confrontation.

He flops down onto his bed when he notices that his laptop —  _the_ laptop — is blinking with a green light. Yunho reaches for it and logs in.

His video player shows an image of a hotel room. He bolts up on his bed. Could it be—

As if hearing Yunho’s question, Changmin appears on screen. He’s wearing a generic hotel nemaki, his hair wet and the glistening skin of his collar bones and chest peeks through the gap of the robe. Yunho looked closer, the video looked recent, as if, as if it—

Yunho snatches his phone and sends a text message: _'w_ _here are you'_

On the screen, Changmin’s phone buzzes in answer. Changmin swipes up his phone, glances at it, and throws it back onto the bed. The insides of Yunho stomach do several flips and turns and roundhouse kicks. This is live, for some reason, his laptop is streaming Changmin live via webcam.

'I’m clean now.' Changmin announces, and tosses a black plastic bag onto the bed. He scoots back until he leans against the pillows. The robes part to reveal endless legs, and good grief when Changmin shifts to get comfortable the robe is pushed apart completely, exposing the fact that Changmin is nude underneath and leaving _nothing_ to the imagination.

Yunho shuts the laptop so fast he almost catches his own fingers. He paces around the room, then goes to the kitchen and gets a beer, then puts it back into the fridge and just stares at the contents of the fridge in a somewhat catatonic state.

What the hell is Changmin doing video-camming with someone while he’s naked in a hotel room and why is it on Yunho’s computer! The entire situation is too bizaare, Yunho grabs the beer can and presses it against his forehead, he doubts that he can keep anything down right now knowing that Changmin is doing illicit stuff over the internet. He can’t even think about anything else knowing what Changmin is up to or might be up to on the other side of the camera.

Yunho sits down on the sofa, hard, opens the can of beer, the smell of alcohol makes him put it back down. In the quiet room even the fizz from the can sounds raucous. Yunho springs up, rushes to his room and rummages through his luggage to find his noise-cancelling headphones. He shoves them onto his head and his world mutes, only the sound of his breathing and rapidly beating heart remain.

The laptop lies in the centre of his bed, the heat from the CPU almost tangible all the way from the doorway. It rests there like something alive, with a conscious and stubborn presence, demanding Yunho’s attention.

With dance-precision, Yunho sits on the edge of the bed, plugs the headphones into the audio jack, and opens his laptop.

 

He immediately wishes that he hadn’t. The video feed is still front and centre on his screen, except it’s so much worse now. The robe that provided Changmin with any semblance of modesty is gaping, its ties unravelled to reveal expanse upon expanse of flawless, shiny skin. Changmin’s legs are spread and wide open, his crotch pointed at the camera, and he’s masturbating with what looked like a bottle. Upon closer inspection, Yunho recognises it as one of those 'masturbation cups' that Japan sells. Changmin sports impressive pubic hair that extends up to join his happy-trail but trickled off as it reaches his testicles, which are taut with prominent veins.

Changmin moans and picks up the pace. The angle is truly obscene. Yunho grimaces, he’s seen a naked man before, but this is his bandmate, his dongsaeng, whom he grew up with and shares close and personal lives with for over ten years. Now, naked and legs parted and jacking off in front of a webcam. Changmin reaches a hand between his legs and massages his ball-sack, Yunho adjusts his posture. The way Changmin treats his body is so rough, so impassioned with a uncontrolled kind of fury that Changmin applies to everything on which he sets his mind. It looks almost painful to Yunho.

Changmin spreads his legs wider, and extends a finger down to press against his hole. Yunho’s face slackens as Changmin abandons the fleshlight and grabs a bottle of lube, squeezing a generous amount on his hands before he rubs it over his cleft. He fists his penis with one hand and resumes the furious pace, his other hand reaches down to massage his anus, tracing around the rim. Yunho watches breathless as Changmin keeps teasing the pucker as it quivers with each flick of Changmin’s finger, until Changmin presses his middle finger against it, and barely breaches the furled opening before he moans loudly and comes in his own fisted hand.

Yunho feels the room around him disassemble as if gravity has disappeared. With each spurt of cum dribbling down Changmin’s hand, the furnitures, the walls, the flooring and himself float upwards towards the ceiling, weightless, deracinating.

Changmin turns his head as he pants into the pillow, his finger still inside himself as he cradles his softening cock, hands striped with pearly strings of cum. His entire body glistens with sweat, his nipples pert and his stomach contracting with each enervating breath.

After an eternity, when the room settles around Yunho once again, Changmin reaches over the nightstand for the box of tissues, he wipes both his hands and then his genitals, reaching down between his legs. Changmin rolls up and sits down in front of the webcam, His face coloured by a post-sex flush and his ears are almost crimson, his damp hair mussed and clinging to his cheeks. Changmin’s eyes are red-rimmed and glistening, almost as if he’d been crying.

Changmin swipes a hand across his eyes. Then wrinkles his nose as he catches a whiff of his own seed - the entire hotel room must smell like sex right now. Changmin stares into the lense for a few seconds, expressionless yet exposed, before he reaches over and ends the video.

 

Yunho shivers from a sudden chill, his body clammy, covered in a sheen of cold sweat. He drops the laptop beside him and falls backwards on top of the covers. The ceiling spins above him, he hasn’t consumed one drop of alcohol today yet his mind is swimming in its own fluid, a swirl of chaos in his skull, his ears ringing.

Yunho takes off his headphones, his hands curling and uncurling around the padding as he debates if he should go take a shower of if the sight of his own body is too much for him at the moment.

He’s of course watched porn before, but has always focused on the girls. He knows for a fact that Changmin dates girls, is obsessed with beautiful women. Even though the thought of Changmin doing adult things sends chills crawling all over his body like bugs under his skin, he’s come to accept that Changmin is an adult and has come to terms with disassociating that aspect of Changmin’s life with the image of the wide-eyed boy he first encountered in the company during their trainee days.

But this, this is molten lead on the barriers between the compartments Yunho has carefully set up in his mind to block those uncomfortable truths. He simply does not know how to react to such information. He peels off his t-shirt which has started to stick to him and focuses on the sensation of dry air-conditioning air washing over his body. Goosebumps form on his skin almost like a rash.

He may very well develop a rash due to what he just watched. In his previously strictly organised mental-compartments, Changmin situated squarely in the platonic compartment no matter how much they ship-tease on stage or how many married-couple jokes they make on-air. Changmin is blood to him, closer to a sibling than even Jihye sometimes.

In his mind he keeps replaying the way Changmin climaxed with a finger up his butt, the little high pitched gasps escaping from his lips, the strands of sweat-drenched hair clinging to his cheeks, the rise and fall of his torso, how his hole pulsated around the intrusion.

Yunho fists his hair and pulled, disregarding if a few strands are torn out.

He can’t deny that Changmin has exemplary aesthetics, even amongst peers in this industry that trades in beauty. Changmin’s face is an epitome of masculine pulchritude, and despite his aversion to dancing, there is a certain grace and co-ordination to Changmin’s body that exudes almost a regal comportment. Yunho curls up, holding his knees to his suddenly aching chest, he hadn’t expected that Changmin could be this animated, this alive, so vulnerable and delicate looking when his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are half lidded and pupils dilated and his lips parted puffing out desperate breaths as he fingers himself…  

Yunho smacks his forehead with both hands. Before today, he had a pretty certain grasp on his sexual attraction, and considered himself to be somewhat of a decent human being, and now here he trying desperately not to be turned on by a man, not just any man, his closest friend and family, his sibling, his other— 

 _You wished to see more, and now you have seen more._ An voice in his mind jeers. _You should be careful what you wish for._

Yunho jolts from the bed. He needs a shower. He wants to scrub his body with one of those pot-cleaning steel-wool sponges Changmin made him purchase for his new place.

All these mental struggles is accompanied by a profound unsettling prospect that a third person has seen these videos. The prospect that a stranger might have just witnessed what Yunho has just seen pulls at his stomach.

But, after tonight, how can he possibly talk about this with Changmin? How is he even able to face Changmin tomorrow at work or later tonight if Changmin decides to comes home? How will it be possible for Yunho to ever look at Changmin without associating him with these newly acquired mental images?

Yunho smothers himself with a pillow, attempting to suffocate the thought in the process. It is, of course, unsuccessful — as is the whole ordeal of trying to not think about Changmin, and trying to deny that Changmin in orgasm is the single most sexy thing Yunho has ever imbibed in his life.

He’s in trouble.

 

*

 

Yunho spent the entire evening rehearsing his speech to Changmin (who didn’t end up coming home last night). It usually ended with him punching a wall in frustration.

  * Changmin-ah, I know being a gasoo is hard work and you need to relieve the stress sometimes, but cyber sex is too dangerous. If you want, hyung can ask around to see if there’s any girls—
  * Changmin-ah, if someone is threatening you, you should go to the police, you are old enough to know not to concede to coercion—
  * Changmin-ah, have you checked your web-cam recently? I think it’s been uploading some stuff onto my computer—



Needless to say it was a fruitless endeavour.

Now, in the car, his manager tells him that Changmin is at the studio already. Yunho nods numbly, they are scheduled to fly out to Fukuoka later this afternoon, and Yunho barely had the mind to bring his passport with him. The period closing in towards the holiday break is always deceptively quiet despite no activities scheduled in Japan, but with budget reports and schedule finalisations due before the year ends, Yunho feels stressed, pressed for time, exhausted from just the thought of the impending work.

Yunho covers his eyes. He wishes that he could trust that Changmin has the situation under control. Just because nothing seems to have surfaced on the grapevine doesn’t mean that the information won’t be leaked at a later date. The mere existence of these recordings is a threat, a ticking bomb buried beneath their feet when Yunho already has a mountain of work to do in order to secure their foundation for a very important year ahead.

Yunho grits his teeth, the issue is too significant to allow further delay, he needs to talk to Changmin, even though he doesn’t have a clue what he is going to say.  

 

Once inside the AVEX building, Yunho mentally rallies himself, reciting one of those speeches he’d give to the staff before pre-concert. He’s mid-way through and approaching their office when Changmin abruptly steps in front of him in the hallway and drags him into an empty meeting room and shuts the door.

Changmin sports bloodshot eyes with significant dark circles. And when Changmin touches his wrist, Yunho flinches as if he were zapped.

'I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s probably the right thing for you. And I was wrong to freak out like that last night.' Changmin says, semi-sitting as he leans against the edge of a meeting table. 'It just— it pisses me off whenever I think about them.' He studies one of his hands that’s gripping the edge of the table. 'I don’t know how you do it, hyung, how you manage to not let them get to you.'

Changmin’s fingers are quivering, white knuckled, the wrist-bone so sharp it casts angular shadows on Changmin’s forearm. Changmin, frown deep and lips thin, keeps his head lowered as he dips his shoulders into a bow.

Yunho hugged him across the shoulder before he’s able to complete the gesture of repense. Tense and bony in his arms, Changmin tentatively returns the hug, hands going around Yunho’s waist and holding him there as if he’s unsure of Yunho’s intentions.

Yunho releases him, pulls out one of the office chairs and sits facing Changmin. He takes one of Changmin’s hands in both of his, uncurling it from its tight grip on the edge of the table.

'I’m not upset because those people no longer matter to me, Changminnie. Ever since the case settled, I’ve been trying to teach myself to let go of the feelings of resentment and hate, because ultimately I should not let these things affect my mentality and my out-view in life.'

Changmin furrows his eyebrows. He looks sleep deprived and worn-out and Yunho’s chest tightens with tenderness. 'Have you had breakfast? You look like you didn’t get a lot of sleep…'

The tips of Changmin’s ears flush and a bolt of electricity crackles down Yunho’s spine. Of course Changmin would be tired after what he did to himself last night. Yunho forces himself not to tense up.

Changmin’s breath rushes out in a sigh, 'Aren’t you angry at me for shouting last night? I already apologised to all the staff from last night but—'

Yunho traces the protrusions and valleys of Changmin’s knuckles with his thumbs. 'I should’ve told you. I was afraid you might get angry when you knew, and I just made it worse by not telling you. Hyung is a pabo sometimes, Changdola, you have to put up with that.' He sticks out his tongue, 'I’m sorry.'

Changmin’s eyebrows unknots as he lets out a snort.

He punches Yunho lightly on the shoulder. 'You are an idiot sometimes, you know. And I regret yelling last night but I do mean what I said as well. You don’t have to be a saint in every situation. Just because you’ve forgiven them doesn’t mean you have to be nice to them.' Changmin smacks the table with his hand. 'They fucking annoy me, I know I shouldn’t let them get to me but I get pissed off whenever I think about them. I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself if I ever see them in person.'

Yunho chuckles, standing up and stretching. 'Would you like to find out? I think Jaejoong is interested in organising a meetup or a reunion or something.'

Changmin hops off from the table as well and pinches a fold on Yunho’s pullover. 'Tell Jaejoong, that if I ever see him in person, I’m going to fucking punch him in the face.'

It just makes Yunho laugh more. As they stroll back to their office, Yunho glances at Changmin, whose dark circles are significant as ever thanks to the harsh office-building lighting, but his eyes are now crinkled unsymmetrically as he returns Yunho’s mirth, and Yunho can’t find the strength in himself to bring up the videos.

 

Changmin’s good mood perdures through the remainder of the day despite delays in their travel schedules. He fights with Yunho on who gets the aisle seat on the plane (Yunho usually gives it to Changmin but today Changmin is insistent that Yunho takes it). He fiddles with both his and Yunho’s media set until Yunho has to physically restrain him. After a brief moment of stillness, Changmin stops adjusting the screens and seating and overhead reading light to bother Yunho instead.

He peels off Yunho’s eye-cover. 'Something’s bothering you.' He squints at Yunho in a way that made the unevenness of his eyes ever obvious.

Yunho pulls out his earbuds, letting them dangle around his neck. 'Nothing’s bothering me. Are you going to be like this for the rest of this flight? Because if you are I’m switching seats with manager-san.'

Changmin tugs his sleeve, 'Come on, tell me. Are you still upset at the whole I got into your phone thing? I didn’t know it was going to cause the phone to lock itself.'

So the brat is the culprit who got him locked out of of his phone that night. Yunho sighs. 'I’m serious Changmin, it’s been a crazy busy period and I just want to take a nap.'

Changmin purses his lips. 'Is it because I didn’t talk to you last night? I promise you I wasn’t with any girls—'

Yunho digs his fingernails in the cushioning of his seat. He’s tempted to remonstrate that he knows exactly what Changmin did last night. But a look at Changmin’s face, with his fringe falling into his eyes as he regards Yunho with his best 'lost-puppy' expression, and Yunho loses all manners of acerbity. The conversation is, however, making he recall the video from last night and seeing this innocent face just makes Yunho want to scrub himself with that pot-clearning steel-wool sponge.

Yunho fluffs Changmin’s hair. 'I’m not mad, I’m just tired. I barely got any sleep the past week or so. Do you want to switch with me so I can take a nap? This way you don’t need to wake me up if you need to get up or anything.'

Changmin shakes his head, 'It’s a short flight, I won’t bother you anymore.' He pushes the window-shade up and pulls his knees towards himself, tucking in the narrow seat, staring at the clouds outside.

Feeling guilty, Yunho tweaks Changmin’s ear which is sticking out from the long strands of Changmin’s bangs. Changmin glanced at him from underneath his side-swept fringe. Yunho smooths out some strays on Changmin’s head, Changmin’s hair is a dry tangled mess due to years of chemical and heat treatments. Changmin leans into Yunho’s hand and rubs his head against Yunho’s palm feline-like. Then reaches out and takes one of Yunho’s earbuds.

Changmin’s streaks of affection always emerge sporadically. His usual obsession with cleanliness and his pedantic insistence on not sharing personal effects gets pushed back by his onslaught of enthusiasm. Like now, Changmin usually complains about sharing earbuds, but he’s happily rifling through Yunho’s phone for playlists. The sun outlines Changmin’s profile in gold. Yunho wonders if he’s like this with his lovers, if some lucky girl would be let into Changmin’s closely guarded space and see this side of Changmin.

That thought segways into Yunho thinking of Changmin being intimate in a relationship which leads back to the the video from the night before all over again. Yunho clawed at the seat cover under his fingers, he’s going to smash the laptop and find some way to set digital contents aflame so he can burn those videos with fire.

Changmin taps his leg. 'Why do you have a playlist of my solos?'

'I have lots of playlist for our songs.' Yunho responds with a rehearsed answer. He relaxes his legs to hide his alertness from Changmin.

'You don’t have a playlist of your solos.'

'I don’t need one.' Yunho volleys. Changmin scrutinises him and Yunho hopes that his face isn’t betraying him with a blush or anything like that.

His playlist of Changmin’s solos is hidden in plain sight, amongst various other playlists of their songs: the ballads, the SMPs, live versions. It’s organised like this on purpose, so if someone looks over his shoulder he has an excuse readily available for why he’s listening to one Changmin’s songs.

Of course it has to be Changmin who notices.

Changmin tilts his head, then sinks back into his own seat and resumes playing with Yunho’s phone, content to let the subject drop.

Yunho pulls at the a thread that has come loose on the sleeve of his knitted pullover. He listens to Changmin’s solo much more than their other songs — more than any other music for that matter. Even now, even after they’ve been in the sound studio together for more hours that Yunho can count and gone over hundreds of songs in hundreds of arrangements for thousands, literally thousands of times, Yunho still feel the shiver deep in himself during Changmin’s high notes. He still secretly indulges in Changmin’s voice, relishes in the the crisp brightness of Changmin’s timbre, which saturates him like basking in the light of the summer sun.

Yunho of course can't say any of that to Changmin, nor can he bring up the topic of the videos when Changmin is smiling with his chin in his hand, mouthing the lyrics to the song he is listening to as he watches the clouds beneath them from the aeroplane window.

Sitting here, squashed in the economy class seat on an airplane with all their staff and management dispersed amongst three-hundred odd strangers, knees pressed together and ankles crossed in the cramped space and with one earbud in Changmin’s ear and the other still dangled around Yunho’s neck, Yunho is hyper aware and self conscious of their closeness. What would Changmin do if Yunho leans over and tells him that he likes listening to Changmin’s voice for hours on end, when he needs to focus, when he needs to relax— that even after a decade he still find it amazingly complex and enriching, and Yunho probably wouldn’t mind if Changmin’s voice is the only thing he listens to for the rest of his life.

Yunho pulls his eye-cover down over his face. He really is in trouble.

 


	3. Effectuation

Jihye visits him in Japan the day before he is due to fly black to Korea, her life even busier than that of her gasoo brother. She’s going on a year-long overseas exchange program in a month or so, much to Yunho’s displeasure.

‘What kind of country is Mexico anyway?’ Yunho asks over his chicken-nabe. ‘Why couldn’t you have chosen Canada or USA like the rest of the normal people?’

Jihye has one leg tucked under her, sitting not-at-all ladylike on the other side of the booth. ‘Could you be more superficial? Mexico is just like any other country, with amazing beaches, and spectacular churches, and summer all year round. And a thriving K-pop community I might add. You should include it in your world tour next time…’ she trails off, pretending to be interested in her dinner while stealing a glance at Yunho.

Yunho waves his hand. ‘You don’t need to tip-toe around the subject, I know my days are numbered. Everything after the army is a whole other story after all.’

Jihye puffs out her cheeks. ‘Don’t say your days are numbered, it’s unlucky. Besides, I’m sure you’ll be fine.’

Yunho grins, even though she’s caught up to his chin in height and she’s wearing makeup that makes her look older than her actual age, she’ll always be the kid-sister in ponytails and school uniform to him. ‘Oh yeah, how do you know that, stupid?’

Jihye shrugs, lamentably she no longer gets riled up by his words. ‘Everything always works out for you. Mum and dad used to get so worried, and now we’ve just stopped caring. Even if you fell off the Tokyo Tower, you’ll probably find a way to sprout some wings and fly to safety. You have dog-shit good luck for some reason.’

Yunho stretches and touches her arm. ‘Thanks, Jihyenie.’

Jihye’s eyes flush red around the rims as she brushes his hand aside. She hides her face in her hair and scrambles to get a compact from her bag. Yunho looks away, rubbing the back of his neck.  

He knows exactly how much burden having a gasoo as a son and brother brings to his family. It’s one of those unrepayable debts he owes for his choice, the existence of which his parents refuse to acknowledge and only seems to upset Jihye whenever they approach the subject.

Jihye clears her throat, after gathering herself. ‘Are you coming home for Christmas?’

Yunho mentally tallies the amount of work he has to complete by the new year. He’s always busy throughout the holidays, but he figures that priorities can be rearranged. He’s slowly learning this ‘work/life balance’ thing which Changmin insists that Yunho is severely lacking.

 _‘Break good, work bad.’_ Changmin had admonished him earlier this evening when Yunho had considered cancelling on Jihye to squeeze in a few more hours at AVEX before they left Japan. _‘Honestly, it’s like trying to teach a dog to stop digging holes in the yard.’_  

 _Break good, work bad._ Yunho repeats the mantra in his head. A break would probably benefit Changmin as well. That boy is in no position to lecture other people about work/life balance when he obsesses about work more than anyone else: getting up at 4am to check his emails, pulling more all-nighters at the company than Yunho, so much so that the black-circles under his eyes were becoming somewhat of a permanent feature.

‘I’ll try to make some time.’ Yunho says. ‘With you going to some taco-land and my military services starting in a few months, it might be the last chance mum and dad have to see the both of us for a while.’

‘Ok’ Jihye sips her yuzu-umeshu. ‘Let me know the dates in advance so I can organise transport for them to come to Seoul.’

She really has grown up. With a big brother whose presence is so scarce, she has appropriated the responsibilities of the first child, and has learnt to take care of others in place of being taken care of. The determined and confident woman sitting in front of him so at ease with herself is a direct consequence of having an inadequate older-brother, one of those manifestations of the aforementioned debt.

Yunho chews his lips, he’s being unreasonably sentimental today.

‘Are we inviting the Shims?’ Jihye asks.

His parents and Changmin’s parents have somewhat amalgamated into one big parenting unit over the years. Comrades in arms, maybe, or simply because their holidays are so brief and infrequent that it’s just easier for everyone to have one big family dinner instead of organising two separate outings to two separate cities.    

‘Changmin mentioned that his parents took his sisters to go on a holiday overseas, to Europe, or somewhere. His dad finally got long-term leave from his university.’

‘Then bring Changmin along.’

Yunho says, ‘I’ll ask, but you know how Changmin is with the whole… privacy issue, plus he’s not Christian, so wouldn’t it be weird if—’

Jihye rolls her eyes. ‘Oh for god’s sake. He’s obviously going to go out and get drunk off his face with a bunch of wine-and-dine friends or lock himself in a room and play video-games until he goes cross-eyed. If you don’t ask I will.’

Yunho raises his hand, palm forward. ‘I’ll ask him, I will. I can’t guarantee a yes.’

Jihye reaches over and takes the last piece of chicken from Yunho’s bowl. ‘I’m doing it for you, you know. Mum and dad always nag about how it’s time for you to settle down and get a wife. But for some reason they avoid they subject when Changmin is present.’

Yunho fiddles with his chopsticks, aligning them next to his now empty bowl. ‘Probably because they know that it might set Changmin’s parents off with their own rant.’

Jihye shrugs: ‘Probably, could also be because it’s awkward.’

Yunho cocks his head: ‘Awkward?’

Jihye says: ‘You know how it is with you two. You’re practically platonically married, even mum and dad can sense that kind of bond. Honestly if you were a girl he’d be my brother-in-law by now.’

Yunho scratches his chin, ‘Don’t you mean if Changmin were a girl she’d be your sister-in-law... never mind that, Changmin is not my husband, or my wife. We’re not like that.’

Jihye winks, raises her hand to order another round of drinks. ‘Whatever you kids are calling it these days, oppa.’

Cradling his tea-cup, Yunho draws all the strength from within his body to force his face to relax and smile the joke off.

 

The residence is spotless when Yunho gets home — floor polished and buffed to the point where it squeaks under Yunho's cloth slippers, counters cleared, rubbish bins empty, ceramic crockery polished and stacked in the glass cabinetry. The bars on Changmin’s set of weights gleam with a chrome sheen. Yunho can’t help but compare this with the abhorrence that is his apartment back in Korea, with most of his belongings still shoved in boxes. He wouldn’t mind spending his break here if it weren’t for the fact that this residence is situated in Tokyo, away from home.

The door to Changmin’s room is shut — he’s probably exhausted himself cleaning. Yunho retires to his own bedroom. He stares at his laptop for a full minute before opening it in order to check his webcam.

Yunho regards at the screenshot indicating that a new recording has been received like it’s a curse.

_Dai-kyou._

Yunho is not sure if he has the capability to deal with whatever might be shown when the video plays. The last video has instilled a genuine fear within him. He’s had a really long day, and seeing Changmin in some state of undress doing entirely too private things that he utterly does not want to associate with Changmin which also brings up completely inappropriate reactions in himself makes seriously him question the limits of his mental fortitude.   

Yunho props a pillow against the headboard of his bed. There is really no choice in this matter. He can’t very well ignore the problem in front of him and pretend nothing is happening after the severity of the previous video. He doesn’t have the luxury to put things off when they arise and deal with them later.

Yunho plays it.

  

Changmin sat on the floor of the living room of the residence, or what appeared to be the living room — because it’s a wreck: chaos all around him, shards of glass and porcelain splattered across the floor, furniture overturned and weights strewn about casually. Changmin balanced his tablet on his knees as he bandaged his hands. Beyond him, a broken floor lamp that has fallen over and jutted out of the mess like an offensive piece of re-bar amongst a demolition site.

Even though Changmin was wearing the same clothes he wore when he said goodbye to Yunho before Yunho left to meet Jihye, the utter state of chaos of the living room calls into question the recentness of the video. Surely this couldn’t be the same living room he had just walked across in its immaculateness.

Changmin’s eyes were obscured by the shadow of his fringe, Yunho can’t see his expression except for thinly pressed mouth.

‘Surprised?’ Changmin asked after he finished bandaging his fingers, his tone almost facetious. ‘Enjoy the view, it’s all me.’ He gestured, an electrical wire sparked somewhere behind him.

‘This is how much I hate making these videos. How much I hate talking to you. This is what you made me do by sending me all those messages just because I haven’t sent anything over the last few days. I am working, ok? I’ve been busy flying all over Japan. I had to go to Korea as well for a stupid party. And I shared hotel rooms with the staff and him. It’s not like I have tons of time on my hand, even if I did, I’d spend it doing literally just about anything else rather than talking to you.’

Changmin shifted part of his weight to his hands which were stretched behind his body. The tablet tilted, the camera pointing towards the ceiling. Changmin righted it until it was focused on his face before leaning back, his chin centre on the screen. There was a thin cut across his chest above the collar of his t-shirt that was leaking a trail of blood, staining the fabric in a blossoming crimson semi-circle. ‘It’s mostly his stuff I smashed, well, stuff he claims to be his. He uses my things anyway, it doesn’t make much of a difference. I’ll replace them later, it’s not like he’ll notice.’ He touched his neck and winced.

Changmin stood up, bringing the tablet with him as he walks to the kitchen. The camera jostled with his steps until he set it down on the kitchen counter, narrowly missing a puddle of fizz the colour of beer foam. Changmin restored the sofas to an upright position and picked up the fallen lamp. He examined the damage before he disassembled it as he carried it towards the apartment entrance, disappearing out of view.

After a few minutes he reappeared, the lamp gone and a broom in his hand instead. He leaned close enough to the camera so that the sweat drops along his face and neck were visible and focused. ‘Exciting isn’t it, watching your idol clean like a fucking maid.’

For the next few minutes Changmin disappeared in and out of the screen as he swept and mopped the floor, putting away his weights and positioning all the displaced furniture to their original layout. He then wiped down the hard-surface: the counters, the side and end-tables, the windows and even the doors. He vacuumed the upholstery, stood there and frowned at the sofa, before he disappeared again and this time came back with a giant bucket looking device on wheels with a mop-like attachment - a steamer, Yunho recognises when Changmin turned it on and got engulfed by vapour. Yunho didn’t even know they had one in the apartment. Changmin steam-cleaned the couch, then looked over and proceeded to steam clean the curtains.

When he finished, Changmin wiped his hand across his forehead, his face was wet with sweat and condensation.

‘Look, stop fucking sending me these messages already. I don’t want to talk to you and I don’t want to see you and I don’t want to share anymore of my life with you. You bother me again, and I’ll fucking call the police.’

He smacked the tablet. It toppled forward. The screen goes black as the front-view camera gets obscured.

The video however has not finished playing. Yunho waits, fidgeting as he listens to the muffled and distorted sounds picked up by the microphone.

When Changmin up-righted the tablet, around sixteen minutes later, the lens was smeared with moisture, giving the recorded images vector-like light-halos as they moved. Changmin removed his shirt and used it to wipe at the lens and the screen, his chest covered in a sheen of sweat, his nipples pert. The floor looked newly waxed behind him in the now clearer image.

Changmin bowed against the kitchen counter, his arms spread on either side as he hunches his neck and shoulders forward to look into the camera.

‘Please, don’t bother me anymore. I don’t know why I’m compelled to speak with you when I can just ignore your emails at the very least. I don’t know why I can’t stop.’

He slammed his palms down on the counter-top, the footage rattled due to his force and Yunho almost jumps in surprise.

‘I keep thinking about you these past few days, I can’t stop my mind. Despite how ugly you must be, I want to know what you look like. Despite what a horrible person you are, I want talk to you. I want to tell you about how much I want to fucking kill Jung Yunho and all the Japanese staff for not leaving me alone.’ Changmin said in a rush. ‘I don’t know why you want videos from me. I don’t know why I keep sending them. I just—’ He looked away suddenly, pinching the bridge between his nose. ‘I just have no one else.’    

He slid down onto his knees, pressed his forehead against the refractive surface of the composite stone counter, his hands pillowed beneath his face, like he was supplicating.

From this angle Yunho cannot see Changmin’s face, even as he tilts his laptop many different angles and cranes his head. He catches himself — it’s a recording from Changmin’s webcam, he can’t instruct the videographer to adjust the angle of the shot, he can only watch. Yunho digs his nails into the fabric of his jeans, studying the way Changmin’s hair parts in a swirl at the top of his head.

Changmin lifted his eyes, his mouth and nose were still buried in the back of his hand, and he mumbled something into them, and even though it was debilitatingly soft and garbled by Changmin’s flesh, Yunho still manages to catch every single syllable, and it renders him immobile, paralysed in his own skin long after the video ends.  

Changmin had said: ‘ _Chokusetsu aitai...’_

 

Yunho takes off his slippers and pads barefoot across the hall to Changmin’s room. He nudges against the door but there is no sound coming from the other side. He pushes the door until it ajars. Changmin is curled up into a ball above the covers, his tablet beside him on the pillow.

Yunho maps out a course of action in his mind: he’ll walk into Changmin’s room, pull the cover out from under Changmin and tuck him in, maybe stroke his hair, see of they feel as feather-soft as they look, and then delete all the videos from the tablet.

Instead, Yunho retreats, and closes the door gently.

Looking around the apartment, subtle evidences emerge indicative of Changmin’s labour: the spotless windows, the new tea-towels, the fabric curtains and sofa upholstery bright and clean, almost exuberant in their steamed freshness — Changmin must have spent his entire evening cleaning for everything to look this impeccable compared the utter chaos depicted in the video.    

Yunho counts the dishes and mugs in the kitchen cabinets, the light spots along the porcelain dancing in front of his eyes. He can’t remember how many cups or plates they had originally, nor can he distinctly recall their pattern and shapes.

If someone were to replace everything in this apartment tomorrow with similar objects that serve an identical function, he would probably not be able to notice the difference unless it was pointed out to him.

Even after all these years, Yunho still has trouble acknowledging his apartment in Tokyo as home. He will always feel a sense of impuissance being shoved into the city, forced to put up with heat-waves and tropical storms and sometimes even earthquakes.

They’ve been living here for almost four years now, in this 2LDK unit in an updated row-house in Shinagawa-ku not far from AVEX’s headquarters. AVEX had rented it for them when they restarted their activities back in 2011. It’s difficult for someone holding a foreign passport to obtain rent in Japan so he and Changmin has not bothered with finding a place separately for themselves, but due to the inflexible arrangement Yunho has trouble adjusting, due to the fact that he never stays here unless he’s on a business trip he hadn’t bothered with personalising his room.

Not that his apartment in Korea is much different, Yunho realises. He’s moved in for almost two months now and has yet to properly unpack. He can’t connect with the space. It’s just a place for him to crash when he can’t stand sleeping on the cot in SM building anymore, an address he fills in on his departure cards.

_It’s almost like I’m homeless._

Yunho lets out a wry chuckle at the thought. He’s so married to TVXQ, the sheer demand of his career has made building an identity outside of the one he has on stage virtually impossible. His life is so chaotic yet at the same time deficient— he can’t even fulfil the responsibility of a son and brother to his immediate family, despite the significance family bears for him— and he can’t even find time to establish a proper abode he can call home.

The couch smells faintly like lemon-scented cleaning products, he could see his own reflection beneath his bare feet in the waxed surface of the wooden floorboards, as well as the stellate shapes of the recessed ceiling lights. It almost feels like he’s standing on a glass surface, something transparent — like water.

 _Like someone taking the ground out from underneath me._  

Yunho turns off the lights and curls up amongst the freshly-cleaned cushions of the couch. The living room is big but feels liminal and empty, like a backstage dressing room or a waiting lounge in an airport. Yet, Yunho also doesn’t want to go back to his room where the laptop is because he’ll be tempted to replay those videos again. Even though it doesn’t really matter if he re-watches them or not, because his mind has committed the images and sounds to his memory already; and when he closes his eyes he hears guitar music from Changmin’s incomplete solo, the way Changmin cursed at the camera, the whisper of Changmin saying he wants to meet the recipient like it’s spoken right next to his ear.

Yunho tries to stops himself from remembering the worst one but it’s futile. His mind replays all the concupiscent gasps and moans and the slick sounds of lubricants as Changmin pulls at his own flesh—

 _— All for someone else’s eyes _.

Amidst the deficient and chaotic life he leads as a gasoo, Yunho treasures stability like it’s his pulse and life force: the tightly enforced schedules, the strict regimens, and Changmin’s quiet ever-consistent presence beside him. And now the last but definitely most important part of the foundation of his sanity is imperilled by the existence of these videos and the threats they pose: an anonymous third party who has knowledge of them, the implications they bear about Changmin’s mentality, and Yunho’s inability to compartmentalise his reaction for Changmin.

Yunho scrapes his nails down his arms until his skin welts. The videos might have come out of the left field, but if it were anyone else in the video Yunho would have had the situation under control a long time ago, at least he would have pursued some kind of confrontation. He’s beginning to realise that his relationship with Changmin is a lot less consistent than he had previously assumed.

When was the last time he even confronted Changmin about anything aside from work? The argument about military service months ago, maybe. But even that had been due to the fact that it would directly impact the future of TVXQ. When was the last time he initiated a conversation with Changmin about his personal life, like the talk he had with Jihye tonight?

He spends almost everyday with Changmin, between endless flying and promotions and appearance notices and concert preparation and concert after concert after concert, he lets Changmin enjoy what precious little off-time he had in privacy. Talking seems almost excessive outside of work time, as if taking up each other’s free periods or even sharing the details of what they do off-schedule is greedy.

Changmin is guarded against him— it’s a fact that he’s well aware of even before the existence of these videos. But he’s not the only one out of the two of them. Yunho just never thought about it in detail until today, never thought about how nuanced and delicate and exhausting they’ve become around each other.

On TV, Changmin makes ridiculous comparisons between their relationship and that of a husband and wife. In front of the camera, Changmin yells at Yunho, hits him, bests him in every game Yunho tries to win. Off screen, their relationship is much more strained. Changmin is always angry at Yunho over something. Yunho’s relationship with Changmin is a complex routine of navigating through a field of landmines, giving Changmin space pisses Changmin off, getting too involved in Changmin’s personal life pisses Changmin off, even changing a background on his own phone somehow managed to anger Changmin. It’s gotten to the point where Yunho finds himself rehearsing what to say to Changmin in his head at the beginning of each day. He pays attention to Changmin’s every move, any interaction they might have on and off-stage. And sometimes, when there’s too many other things to take into account -and Yunho admits that it’s more frequent than he prefers -he shuts it out, settles back into business mode, approaches Changmin with the same professionalism he treats other staff, and it always seems to be the agitant for Changmin to become more hostile.

It’s an endless negative cycle.  

 _What do you expect,_ a bitter, self-destructive, dark part of his mind that he consciously represses speaks up: _You try so hard to convince yourself it’s Changmin’s choice, that you are together because you share a vision for the future. But are you certain? Are you certain that he’s standing beside you because of his own will and not because of your overwhelming ambition that has affected everyone in your life whether you like it or not?_

_Did he truly have a choice in the matter, given the cards you were dealt with, given the options he had._

Yunho buries his face in his hands, it takes much more than not deleting Yoochun and Jaejoong’s number in order for his mind to move on.

 

*

  

Changmin gets up at 5.30am. Yunho listens to the sound of running water in the bathroom while sitting there in the darkness of the pre-dawn with his knees pulled in against his body, his hands dangling between them, crossing over each in front of his face.

Changmin startles when he turns on the lights. ‘Yunho-hyung, how long have you been up?’

Yunho shrugs, his eyes following Changmin as Changmin makes preparations for his morning workout: unrolling the yoga-mat out in the centre of the room and arranging his towel and water bottle beside it.

Changmin starts assembling the weight-plates onto the bar. ‘Are you going to watch me work out, hyung?’

Yunho nods, then shakes his head. His head feels heavy on his neck and his shoulders ache with stiffness. Changmin peers over his weights. ‘What time did you finish with Jung Jihye-sshi? I didn’t think you would actually go drinking with her. I mean, she can handle her liquor, you on the other hand—’ He gives Yunho a toothy grin.

Yunho rubs his eyes, the day already starting to feel groggy. ‘We didn’t drink. I- I had some other things on my mind.’

Changmin rests a palm against Yunho’s forehead, Yunho jerks.

‘Well you’re not sick, but you do look pale. Did you sleep at all last night? I was dead to the world. I didn’t even hear the door when you came back.’

Yunho stands up, brushing Changmin’s palm aside. ‘I’m fine, Changmin-ah, you do your thing. I’ll go have breakfast.’

Yunho resolutely tenses his neck to prevent himself from turning around and checking for Changmin’s expression over his shoulders. He walks into the kitchen area and stares at the content of the fridge. Changmin prefers western-style breakfast like toast and cereal, but because of his strict diet there’s nothing but fresh vegetables and protein shakes in the fridge. Yunho hasn’t gone food shopping in months, relying on their company to provide supplies for the apartment during these busier periods.

He finds a mikan amongst mountainous containers of greens. Yunho tosses it in the air and then catches it as he considers what other food his body will accept at the moment.

‘Are you sure that’s even good anymore?’ Changmin asks from behind him. When Yunho jumps at the surprise, Changmin raises an eyebrow. ‘It’s been in there for a while.’ He’s wiping the sweat from his forehead, his singlet already soaking with blossoming wet spots - the same way the blood from Changmin’s now scabbed cut stained his shirt in the video from yesterday.

Changmin notices him staring. ‘I have a confession to make. I was cleaning last night when I accidentally swiped the shelf with my sleeve. Quite a few dishes got broken, amongst which might include some of your stuff as well. And, I also cut myself in the process.’ He points to his neck.

Yunho digs his thumb into the fruit. Changmin is leaning into the fridge to fetch a bottle of protein shake. ‘Is that— is that why I can’t find my mug?’

Changmin’s back muscles stiffen beneath his singlet at the question.

‘You have a particular mug? I thought you just used my stuff.’

Yunho concentrates on separating the fibres from the segments of the mikan. ‘I guess that’s right. I just noticed some missing that’s all.’ He accidentally uses too much force and juice from the fruit jets forth and lands on his shirt.  

Changmin dabs at Yunho with a tea-towel. ‘You’re making a mess, Jung. How is that even possible with only one orange?’

Yunho stares at the segments in his hand, nauseous from the dulcifying scent of the fruit. ‘You’re hurt, anything serious?’

Changmin shrugs, takes a sip of his protein drink. ‘Nothing you should be worried about. Are you going to eat that?’

The orange is dripping sticky juice over his hands. Yunho puts a segment in his mouth, and frowns, he spits it back out and throws the entire fruit into the trash. ‘I think I’ll make some coffee.’

Changmin grins around the straw of his protein bottle. Yunho turns and grabs the first packet of capsules he touches, he rips open the packaging.

‘I thought you hated that flavour.’

Yunho reads the packaging ‘ _Ba- ba, ni_ -’

Changmin chuckles, ‘It’s ' _vanilla'_ , hyung. Have you forgotten your katakana? Here, have this one instead.’ He reaches over Yunho and gets another tube, dropping a single capsule in front of Yunho.

Yunho returns the packet of vanilla flavoured capsules to the shelf and turns on the machine, it beeps, loud and shrill, accompanied by blinking blue lights.

Yunho stares at it like it’s going to come alive and sprout legs.

‘Water refill, hyung.’ Changmin reminds him.

‘Ah,’ Yunho replies, and then spends a full fumbling minute remembering how to detach the water-tank. When he gets water all over the counter and the machine itself, Changmin pushes him aside.

Changmin throws the tea-towel he used to wipe up the juice from Yunho’s mikan over the puddle of water, absorbing it. ‘Just let me do it please, sensei.’

‘ _Gomen_.’ Yunho mumbles an apology under his breath.

Changmin looks at him as he reattaches the now filled water-tank. ‘Is everything ok, Yunho-hyung? You are awfully inapt today, and you’re making a bigger mess than usual.’

Yunho rests his head against the wall as he listens to the hissing of steam from the coffee machine. ‘Didn’t have a good night’s rest.’

Changmin wobbles one side of the his lower lips between his teeth. ‘Is this about what happened in Nagoya?’

Changmin had a disagreement with the sound staff due to the audio-delay issue in the stadium. Yunho shakes his hands vigorously, ‘No, no, completely unrelated.’

Changmin gets a bottle of water from the fridge. ‘I’ll send another email today before we board our flight. But if you feel that I’m being too -’

Yunho squeezes Changmin’s shoulder. ‘I have no issues, Changmin. I understand your desire to present your heart to our audience to the best of your ability. We want the same thing, and I’m sure the staff understands as well, they are just concerned for you.’ Changmin keeps biting his lips and Yunho wants to pull Changmin’s lower lips out from between Changmin’s teeth. ‘Maybe when we come back, we’ll look into better auditorium options or organise an unplugged concert or something like that—’

Changmin’s eyes widen behind his glasses, ‘When we come back?’

Yunho feels that the sludge in his veins is finally beginning to flow like normal blood. ‘Yeah, it’ll be difficult for sure, but we’ll make something happen after the break, ok?’

Changmin stares at Yunho, his specs catch the rays of the morning sun that filter through the blinds and Yunho thinks he might have glimpsed a watery gleam in Changmin’s eyes. But the coffee machine beeps and Changmin startles.

‘Oh no, I forgot the coffee cup!’ He exclaims as the coffee drips into the catching-tray from the dispensing nozzle.

Yunho snatches Changmin’s elbow before he’s able to turn away. ‘Changmin-ah,’ Yunho takes in a breath, ‘If there’s anything bothering you, anything at all, you know you can talk to me, right?’        

Changmin bares his teeth at Yunho in a grin. ‘Right now the only thing that’s bothering me is the mess the coffee is making, Yunho-hyung.’ He puts both hands on Yunho’s shoulders and steers him towards the living room. ‘Actually, why don’t you go and sit down, I’ll bring the coffee to you, you and the kitchen do not have any synergy at all.’

Yunho lets himself be directed out of the kitchen, sitting down on the breakfast table as he stares at the blank spot where the floor lamp used to be.

Changmin emerges from the kitchen a few minutes later, bringing with him two cups of coffee on a tray, also on the tray is toast and a variety of spreads and one of Changmin’s lunchboxes filled with salad.

Changmin places the coffee cup, complete with saucer and stirring spoon down in front of Yunho. ‘ _Tanoshimi kudasai,_ one sugar, no milk.’

Yunho stares at the array in amazement. ‘Where did you even find bread?’

Changmin shovels a mouthful of his salad. ‘We have a bread-box, hyung.’ He says over his chewing.

Yunho watches Changmin attacks his salad with almost impelled determination.

_Say it._

_Say it now. He’s in a stable mood, there’s no other distractions, it’s the perfect opportunity._

_He’s never going to bring it up with you or anyone else. If you don’t say anything he’s going to go and meet the fan and get kidnapped and you'll end up with something you absolutely won’t be able to handle._

_Just do it. Manager-san will come to pick you up soon and once you’re in Korea you won’t get an opportunity like this again. Say it now._

_Sayitsayitsayitsayitsayit…_

Changmin puts down his fork and wipes his mouth. ‘Is it too burnt?’

Yunho shakes his head. ‘Sorry, I don’t have much of an appetite, Changminnie, even though everything is so delicious.’

Changmin stretches, the hair under his arms almost glossy with sweat and it reminds Yunho of the texture of the wet hair around Changmin’s genitals in the video. ‘I get sentimental after I see my family as well, hyung, don’t beat yourself up over it.’

‘Sentimental—?’ Yunho repeats.

Changmin finishes the rest of his coffee, ‘Hyung, you’re not the kind to talk about contingent commitments like it’s a promise.’ He stands, peeling off his singlet. Yunho resists the urge to avert his gaze. ‘I’m taking a shower, manager-san should be here in a hour or so, so I’m leaving the cleaning to you.’ He pats Yunho on the shoulder, ‘Don’t let your sentimentality get you into more trouble, old man.’

Yunho listens to the sound of Changmin walking away, wanting to smash the plates against his face. He thinks back to the video from last night and the state of havoc Changmin has rendered the apartment, and finds his own desires resonating with the urge to destroy the orderly, unaccommodating space.  

 

*  

  

Changmin shoots down the idea of going to church with Yunho, on their way from the airport after yet another delayed flight, and not gently either. When Yunho suggests it, Changmin explodes with laughter.

‘You expect me, a philosophically Buddhist-leaning atheist, to attend mass with you and your family on Christmas.’ He clutches his side as his eyes crinkle up unevenly. ‘Isn’t that irreverent or something and don’t you get thrown into a pit of fire in hell after you die for doing that?’

Changmin always releases more motion than sound when he laughs, the quakes in his body taking over his entire form as he shakes from soundless gasps of air. Yunho wants to wrap Changmin’s laughter up so he can indulge in it at his will. He straightens Changmin, who has collapsed onto Yunho’s lap, before smoothing Changmin’s breathing out with pats on his back. ‘I thought that all this time you spend hanging out with Siwon might have taught you a thing or two about this, but no, it’s not about exclusiveness anymore. The church that my family attends is no where near as dogmatic as you might imagine.’

Changmin waves a hand in front of his face as he regulates his breathing. ‘Still, I’ll pass, if you want I can come to lunch afterwards, but the thought of singing hymns for a whole morning rests a bit uneasy for the sceptic in me.’

‘There’s also communion.’

Changmin giggles. ‘That, I’m sure would be against the scriptures.’ He swings an arm around Yunho’s neck. ‘Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, and I’m grateful. But you should enjoy these things with your family and people who appreciate the meaning behind your gesture instead of me, who just wants to steal communion crackers.’

With Changmin’s hand still around his shoulder, Yunho sneaks in close and catches Changmin around his waist. Changmin returns the hug, melding against Yunho after letting out a briefly hitched breath. Yunho tucks his head against the curve where Changmin’s neck meets his shoulder and lets out a small sigh. Changmin raises his hand and gently pats Yunho’s head.

‘Are you still in your sentimental mood, ajusshi?’ Changmin teases, his voice so soft and quiet that it makes Yunho squeeze him harder. Changmin’s waist dips inwards beneath the layers of clothes and Yunho can make out the jut of Changmin’s ribs even through the overcoat and multiple sweaters. Changmin nudges at Yunho with his shoulder but Yunho persists with the hug despite the protest, he’s not ready to let go just yet.

He wants to say so much to Changmin: the reason why he wants Changmin there at Christmas, why he wants Changmin to be a part of every aspect of his life, the crippling fear that Changmin might actualise what he said in the video if Yunho can’t account for his whereabouts, the gravitational pull Yunho feels from the void of Changmin’s absence when Changmin is not by his side.   

He tries to convey all that by holding tightly onto Changmin’s body instead, burying his face in Changmin’s clothes, his arms winding around Changmin like stubborn vines around the trunk of a tree.

Changmin lets out a breath, Yunho doesn’t know if it’s an exasperated sigh of not being able to dislodge Yunho or if Yunho has constricted the air out of him. But he slumps his shoulders as he settles in Yunho’s embrace. His arms cradling Yunho’s head and his gloves making tiny static zaps in Yunho’s hair.

He understands. Yunho wants to tear at the water-resistant fabric of Changmin’s overcoat with his teeth, because even though it smells like stale airport vent and mothballs from the closet in the Japanese residence there’s a faint undertone of Changmin familiarity. Somehow, Changmin has comprehended all the unspoken words Yunho can’t manage to voice out.

Even with all these miscommunications and unvoiced emotions and lies over breakfast and secret videos, Changmin is still so close to him, under his skin, so attune to Yunho’s psyche, like Changmin can see through right to the marrow of Yunho’s bones.  

Changmin detangles from him when they reach Changmin’s residence, Yunho gives Changmin a look as Changmin pries Yunho’s arms from around him. This time when Changmin sighs it’s definitely one of exasperation.

‘Ok, you can stay over tonight, but no hogging the shower, and bring your luggage, because I don’t have spare clothes for you.’

‘But Changmin-ah all I brought are dirty stuff from Japan to get laundered, and it’s heavy.’

Changmin presses his palm against Yunho’s shoulder. ‘Stop it, Jung. It’s not ok for a thirty year-old man to be this aegyo. You can leave the luggage with the driver, but can you at least return some of my shirts? I’m getting strange looks from the expenses department, they think that I’m doing your clothes shopping for you.

Yunho bites his tongue from arguing that Changmin _does_ sort of buy his clothes for him, as Yunho constantly forgets to order new apparels and Changmin can’t stand holes in people’s clothing much like other forms of tardiness, and gets especially annoyed at ‘look at how poor Yunho-oppa is’ kind of posts on the forums when Yunho is seen in public wearing a decade-old pair of tattered jeans. Yunho once suggested that Changmin could try to mend his clothes for him, which earned Yunho a t-shirt to the face, Yunho was secretly glad Changmin didn’t decide to throw the pincushion at him instead.

 

On their way from the car to the elevator they hear a small gasp which makes both of them freeze in their tracks. A mop of black hair peeks out from the gap between parked vehicles. Changmin drops his duffel bag forcefully, almost throwing it to the ground, before pinching his nose.

‘Ok, you can come out now.’

Yunho, who had volunteered to carry Changmin’s suitcase for him in thanks to Changmin letting him stay over, also puts down the luggage in his hands, although with a much gentler motion than Changmin.

One of the few perks about debuting a long time ago is that Yunho and Changmin are no longer the primary target of sasaengs. Back in the days, when things were really bad, Yunho nearly killed himself trying to throw off stalkers fans by pulling a 140km/h winding through traffic and almost wrapping his car around a pole. But as they got older, their fan-base also changed from mostly school-kids to more mature adults. Of course, occasions do arise when they find fans trying to meet them at their residence, but compared to the permanent camp that had been set up outside of their dorm back in the days, the situation is infinitely mitigated. Changmin has adopted a ‘don’t encourage, don’t ignore’ attitude which Yunho has also tried to maintain.

The figure turns out to be a school-age girl, still in uniform, she pulls at something hidden by the car she was hiding behind and it emerges to be another girl, also in uniform, who stumbles out with her head ducked. Their backs are hunched and long and heavy bangs obscured their face. One of them has chin-length bob and the other’s hair is in braids, the school uniform they are wearing is identical but with no emblem on their coats.

‘O-oppa,’ The one with the shorter hair speaks up, ‘my-my friend really wants to see you so—’ She grabs the hand of the other girl with braids, who is doing her best to hide behind her friend. The other girl resists, refusing to look at either Yunho or Changmin.

Changmin crosses his arms. ‘Look, you don’t need a lecture from me to know how inappropriate this is—’ He strikes a defensive stance in contrast to his voice, which is deliberately even and calm.

Chin-length-bob finally wrestles her hands free from braids. ‘We, we bought some stuff for your, we know you must be hungry—’ She struggles with her friend until they pull out a black plastic bag from behind them.

Yunho feels the blood drain from his face. ‘Where did you get that.’ He snaps, stepping in front of Changmin.

Out of the corner of his eyes Yunho catches a flicker of frown on Changmin’s face but his mind is distrait— the black plastic bag, though indiscriminate, looks especially familiar, just like the one that was lying on Changmin’s bed beside him when he—

Yunho seizes the arm of the girl in braids, who is holding the bag: ‘Where did you get this, tell me!’ He demands, wrenching the girl up to face him.

The girl in braids gapes at him behind thick-rimmed glasses before bursting into tears. The other girl leaps, prying at Yunho’s hands to free her friend but clearly she is no match in strength to Yunho’s grip. Yunho bears down upon the girl holding the plastic bag. ‘What is in that bag! Speak! Who are you, why are you doing this—’

The girl he has caught is a blubbering mess, trying to form coherent sentences through her sobs and snot bubble with no success. The other girl resorts to shaking Yunho’s arm in order to loosen Yunho’s grip. ‘Oppa, it’s just snacks, we weren’t trying to do anything, she just really likes you guys—’   

Yunho lances his elbow and it drives both girls backwards as they stumble and fall against each other in a heap.

After rummaging, the black plastic bag proves to only contain a few cans and bottles of soft-drinks as well as some packaged cookies and potato-crisps. Both of the girls are crying now, the one in braids burying her face in her friend’s shoulder. Yunho lets out a breath that has started to burn in his lungs, and awkwardly turns to both of them.

As he takes a step forward the girls stagger back, the one with chin-length hair stare at him, face pale and frozen in an expression of abject horror. Yunho halts, the implications of his actions snapping back into his body like a punch to the gut.

Changmin taps him on his back, the touch subtle and familiar, like Changmin is spotting him during a dance.

‘Hey, it’s ok, Yunho-hyung has had a long day.’ Changmin steps forward, on palm raised as the other hand maintains contact on Yunho’s back. his voice is crisp, devoid of any fatigue that he has accumulated pulling three flights in the last 36 hour period, as if he wasn’t at the last reserve of his energy after a week maintaining a relentless schedule. ‘Listen, you really shouldn’t be out here this late at night. Why don’t I get manager-hyung to drive you guys back, it must be difficult getting your way around—’

Changmin walks forward and puts a hand on each of the girls, who are clearly less intimidated by him. As Changmin guides them out of the car-park, he spares one glance at Yunho over his shoulders as they turn the corner, and then takes out his phone to message manager-hyung, all the while still chatting with the sasaengs as they exit the car-park.

Yunho’s knees give out as he crouches down onto the ground beside their luggage, dropping the black plastic bag he held. He rubs his chest where the rapid pumps of blood almost hurt as they course through his heart.

He double checks the contents of the bag.

He had been so certain—

Yunho hits his forehead with the heel of his palm. He’s done it now. There will be brand-new headlines tomorrow about abusive self-entitled gasoo Jung Yunho admonishing sasaeng fans, overreacting to the presence of a plastic bag, having a panic episode even though the situation is completely manageable as there were only two school-age girls and Changmin was also with him.

Changmin has the situation under control now, and, presumably the company should easily be able to take care of the rest, after all, the two girls weren’t supposed to be here in the first place.  

Changmin, however, is surely going to suspect something going on after Yunho lashed out like that.

Yunho picks up the luggage as well as the plastic bag, his hands shaking and his grip slippery from the sheen of sweat on his palms. He could excuse himself due to exhaustion, which, given the circumstance, Changmin will likely find it very plausible. After all, Changmin too has had to endure a week-long breakneck schedule in Japan and the long delays in their travel and—

He laughs bitterly as he hoists Changmin’s duffel bag onto his shoulders. _I never realised how good I am at coming up with excuses._

He locates the backup key-card to Changmin’s residence in his wallet. Yunho rides the elevator to Changmin’s floor. He doesn’t have a spare set of keys for Changmin’s apartment on his person, so he waits for Changmin, who arrives 10 minutes later, a fine dusting of dew on his hair.     

Changmin pauses in front of Yunho, who is leaning against the wall next to the door of the apartment, and cocks his head expectantly as he gives Yunho a look, when Yunho remains silent, Changmin unlocks and opens the door for Yunho.

The smell of stale air and cleaning products hits Yunho in the face. The space sparse and impersonal, shockingly familiar to his own apartment in Korea, except with a distinct lack of dust and boxes. Instead of the view Yunho’s apartment has of the city, dark shapes of trees occupy Changmin’s windows, incising the lights from the street and beyond, casting strange shadows on Changmin’s blinds.

Changmin hangs up his coat and places his luggage next to the coffee table in the lounge area. He retrieves a pair of spare slippers and places them next to Yunho, who hasn’t moved since stepping into the foyer. Changmin takes the black plastic bag from Yunho’s hands, unpacks the contents and lines them up on the kitchen counter. Yunho hangs his head, clutching and unclutching his still-gloved hands.   

Changmin slouches against the wall, semi-facing him, the weight of the minutes passing between them until Changmin takes a breath.

‘Well, are you still ok with staying here tonight, or do you prefer for me to call manager-hyung to take you home?’ Changmin asks, going into the living room and unpacking his duffel. ‘He’s thrilled at having to deal with startled fans, by the way, I’m pretty sure you two will have a great talk tomorrow, when you see him.’

Changmin stipulates his statements with glances towards Yunho, who is still standing there like someone has cemented his feet to the foyer. Yunho wills his body to respond, but each time he opens his mouth to talk his diaphragm tenses up and retains all the air, until he feels light-headed and has to force himself to breathe.

Changmin continues: ‘The girls are fine, by the way. Once we promised signed copy of DVDs it took very little for them to promise that they’ll be discrete about the whole event. Still, I think it’s a good idea to give the fan-club a heads up. No need to go into detail, they were at fault for being there in the first place.’

Changmin lays out the contents of his luggage around him in neat little clusters amongst the coffee table and couch. He walks up to Yunho, who is still silent and stiff, resembling a statue. 'Hyung, I’m not mad, we all have our off days and you’ve been tired since this morning. You’re beating yourself up about this already. I’m not going to scold you.’ When Yunho refuses to meet his eyes, Changmin peers up at Yunho, chasing the turn of Yunho’s head. ‘Talk to me? I promise I won’t yell.’

‘Chami—’, Yunho feels the words grate on his throat like sandpaper, like trying to speak through the worst of his larynx infections, forcing air through swollen and closed-off channels, ‘I know.’

‘Not that I think what you did was right though,’ Changmin puts on a stern face, though his tone is still agreeable: ‘we were lucky there were only two of them and they didn’t alert the horde—’

‘No Changmin,’ Yunho reaches a hand and catches Changmin’s wrist in a loose grasp. He’s beginning to sweat under his coat from the indoor heating, ‘I know, about the videos.’

Changmin’s face smooths into nonchalance. ‘What videos?’ Changmin asks, brisk yet level-toned.

Yunho pulls his gloves off and shoves them into his coat jacket, then sheds his coat. He wants to bend down and unlace his boots but he is afraid of breaking eye contact with Changmin.

‘They were on my laptop Changminnie, I saw them, all of them.’

Changmin offers a hand for his coat. Yunho hands it for Changmin to hang up and crouches to unlace his shoes.

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ Changmin says into the coat closet.

‘The ones you sent to the fan, Changmin, come on.’ Yunho rubs his temples, stepping into the slippers.

‘What fan?’ Changmin shuts the door of the coat closet close with a little too much force. ‘What video? It’s a bit too early to be getting holiday fever Yunho-hyung.’ He goes to the kitchen and picks up a can of drink from the counter and opens it before realising where it came from and sets it back down on the counter, but not before grabbing a coaster.  

‘Come on Changmin, don’t do this,’ Yunho says, following Changmin into the kitchen, where Changmin is busy drumming his fingers on the edge of the counter. ‘I found videos of you on my laptop which you sent to a sasaeng fan, there were dozens of them. I- I found out a few weeks ago, and wanted to talk to you every since.’

Changmin opens the door to the refrigerator. The internal light casting shadows across Changmin’s cheeks. ‘You found videos of me on your laptop?’

Yunho rubs his face, ‘Yes Changmin, the ones of yourself. I think your tablet must have synced up with my laptop when you recorded them. Look, I don’t know how many there were but I think I saw all of them, at least the worst ones.’

Changmin dives into the fridge to grab a bottle of water. ‘The worst of them, what the hell do you think I was doing in those videos?’ His voice echoes from the fridge.

Yunho grips the edge of the sink he’s leaning against to steady himself. ‘I’m not going to describe them Changmin. It’s inappropriate. You know what you did.’

Changmin slams the door shut on the fridge. His knuckles pale on the handle. ‘No, Yunho, I do not know what you are talking about.’ Changmin says, his face pale and his expression severe. ‘I don’t understand what you are referring to. There’s literally millions of minutes of video footage featuring me and believe it or not you are in some of them as well. I most certainly didn’t send any of them to your laptop or to anyone else. And if you deem any of them inappropriate you better explain this entire situation to me because this is starting to be a bit disturbing.’

Yunho puts a hand on Changmin’s arm, he can feel the trembling in Changmin’s body due to its extreme rigidness. ‘You know that’s not what I’m referring to.’

‘I just told you I don’t!’ Changmin flings Yunho’s hand away. ‘I _don’t_ understand what you are saying! Have you been hit in the head or something because you are not making any kind of sense.’  

Yunho retreats until the kitchen is between them, Changmin in one corner diagonal from Yunho in the doorway. There should be background noises, Yunho thinks, cacophony of water running through taps and the hum of appliances or noises from the streets or outside, but there is nothing. Only themselves, breathing in their own space, in the deafening quiet.

Changmin glares at him from beneath his fringe, his eyebrows furrowing unevenly. His eyelashes catches light and look like they have glitter on them.

Yunho jolts.

‘I— I found videos of you on my laptop.’ Yunho swallows. ‘You recorded them yourself, not by a cameraman, and not because of work. They— you were addressing a fan in them who was apparently threatening you and there were dozens of them and in one of them you took off your clothes—’ Changmin’s hands slip from their grip on the kitchen counter and Yunho clenches his fists. ‘Changmin, are you sure you don’t know about any of this because they sure looked real—’

Yunho is hit with the realisation of how ill-planned this confrontation is, even though everything about the video looked entirely too-convincing, there still begs the question of authenticity, maybe it was all some kind of digital manipulation or foul-play.

But that wouldn’t explain the text-message from that time—

‘I, I _stripped_?’ The corner of Changmin’s mouth twitches. ‘To what degree? What else did I allegedly do in these videos?’

‘I wasn’t imagining things,’ His own voice sounds distant, like someone else behind him is speaking the words that is spilling forth from his mouth. ‘Remember that night at the izakaya when we got into that argument and you went to stay at a hotel? You streamed that night, I messaged you and in the video you picked up the phone.’

Changmin parts his lips, then closes his mouth. ‘No, I went to the apartment and slept, I was in my room the whole night. I saw you in the morning—’

‘Yeah, at AVEX.’ Yunho interrupts.

‘—At breakfast!’ Changmin slams his hand on the kitchen counter. ‘Damn-it, what the hell is this!’

Yunho studies Changmin, trying to decipher if there’s any hint of dishonesty on his face, but the physics of the room feels off, the floor convexing between them, everything sliding away from him, and Changmin suddenly feels very, very far away. ‘Ch-check your phone, I sent a message to you.’

Changmin fishes his phone out of his pocket, sure enough there’s a message from Yunho at 12.15am from that night. ‘That doesn’t prove anything though,’ Changmin points, ‘See, here, the ‘message read’ indication is at 7.15am.’

Yunho’s mouth feels dry, his tongue feels like it’s sticking to the roof of his mouth. ‘Last, last night—’

Yunho staggers out of the kitchen. Pacing in Changmin’s oversized living area, where a single round ivory coloured rug occupies a furniture-less space.

Changmin follows him. Standing opposite him as Yunho paces. ‘What about last night?’

‘You recorded a video. You had trashed the living room and were cleaning everything up— that’s why, that’s why the floor lamp was broken and missing, and the cups are broken and—’

‘Hyung, I did clean up last night when you were out at dinner. But I didn’t trash the room beforehand, and yeah I had an accident with the cups but I told you that in the morning. I didn’t break anything on purpose!’ Changmin grabbed Yunho’s hand. Yunho feels lightheaded, Changmin’s hands are cold and Yunho dislodges his touch.

His skin feels tight, like it doesn’t belong on his body, his clothes are sticking to him like they are coalescing into his flesh. ‘No, Changmin, I’m not hallucinating, the videos are real. They’re still on my laptop I can show—’ Yunho takes in an unsteady breath. ‘If we go to my apartment and get my laptop I can show them to you.’

Changmin is shaking his head. ‘You’re clearly delusional from too much work, seriously hyung this is bordering on inappropriate.’

‘But I saw them, Changmin!’

Changmin checks his phone again. Then walks over to where his luggage were unpacked on the sofa and takes his tablet. ‘Here, you said that I taped them on this, right? Why don’t you check yourself?’ He puts in the pass-code for the unlock screen, and hands it to Yunho.

Yunho opens the camera, no familiar thumbnails.

He scrolls through the gallery of saved images and video files but most of them are predictable records of everyday. Changmin likes to take photos of his luggage before he packs them, and also pictures of meals and calorie counts as well as schedules and minutes he’s jotted down. There are a few selfies, but they are nondescript and Changmin is dressed in them with no expression of malice. There are no videos taken from the device.

Yunho checks other apps as well, just to be sure. Then looks up at Changmin, unable to close his mouth.

Changmin takes the tablet from Yunho. ‘That’s the only device I took with me to Japan that has a camera, hyung, that and my phone.’   

‘You could have deleted them.’

‘You checked my deleted folder.’

Yunho shakes his head. ‘I’m not making this up Changmin, we need to talk about this. If there’s someone threatening you—’

‘There’s nothing to talk about!’ Changmin sits down on the armrest of the sofa. ‘I didn’t record myself stripping and I certainly didn’t go to a hotel or vandalise our apartment and I most certainly, definitely, absolutely, would not contact sasaeng fans of my own accord. I don’t know why you have such weird thoughts and how you managed to convince yourself they are real and—’

‘What about the rest of your computer network? They might have been backed-up on there.’

‘No!’ Changmin shoots up. ‘I’m not hiding anything Yunho, but that doesn’t mean you get to search everything in my home like some kind of thought-police!’

The apartment feels confining despite the copious amount of space. Yunho feels trapped by the circular shape of the rug beneath his feet. ‘If you have nothing to hide then show me—’

‘I don’t have to show you anything!’

Yunho closes his eyes, the Changmin in front of him with his snarl reminding Yunho vividly of the first video he ever watched, when Changmin cursed and ranted at the sasaeng fan, even though now the legitimacy of that memory is being questioned. ‘Changmin, I just need to make sure—’

Changmin approaches him, shoulders hitched, arms rigid by his side. ‘You need rest, and probably seek professional help or therapy or something, but mostly right now I think you need to leave.’ He says, coming close to Yunho’s face.

In that instant Yunho hates being a few centimetres shorter than Changmin— in situations such as this when they have to stare down at the each other— Changmin would suddenly overcome his perpetual slouch, like right now, and he is just that little bit taller so Yunho has to look up in the slightest in order to catch his eyes.  

‘Changmin, don’t run away from this’

Changmin’s face looks ghostly white, Yunho can’t ascertain whether it’s the fatigue, or this increasingly upsetting conversation, or bad lighting, or something else.

‘I’m not,’ Changmin sounds tired, the resonance gone from his voice, his spirit taken by the exhaustion from the past few days and the toils of the evening. ‘This discussion is over, you need to leave.’

Yunho opens his mouth but Changmin turns on his heels and marches into his room, taking his tablet with him.  

Yunho flinches at the force of Changmin slamming his bedroom door.

 

In the rubbish bin the black plastic bag rests solitarily. It looks just like the one Changmin had on his bed in that video, of which the exact nature of its existence is now being called into question. Yunho looks around at Changmin’s apartment, at its impeccable and impersonal interior, the excessive glassy surfaces with blinding reflections of the railed spotlights. The furniture and decorations mysterious and foreign. There are no photos or personal memorabilia. It feels like a stranger’s apartment, save for Changmin’s unpacked luggage on the couch, it could pass off as anyone else’s apartment.

Changmin’s desktop computer is nestled in the darkness, located in an enclave visible from the living room where Changmin has set up his sound studio. Yunho knows the pass-code to Changmin’s computer, just as Changmin knows the pass-code to his.

A chill catches up with Yunho like night-frost, Yunho shudders.

He grabs his things and escapes from Changmin’s place like it might implode.

 

*

The residence park is dark, most lights having been turned off as it’s quite late into the night. Yunho shivers in the cold, breathing condensation onto his ungloved hands as he waits for a taxi.

He ruled out the option of calling the company or his manager for a ride on his way down from Changmin’s apartment— aside from not wanting to talk about the encounter in the car-park, he also doesn’t really want lie about why he was leaving Changmin’s place in the middle of the night five hours after they’ve disembarked from the plane. He pulled his collar higher until his nose is buried inside his coat, trying to hold back a sneeze and hoping that the driver who picks him up will not recognise him.

When the taxi does arrive the driver thankfully makes no remarks about his identity — at least that’s one thing that didn’t head south from the onset on this disastrous evening. Yunho flattens his forehead against the window of the taxi, sucking breath after breath of almost painful air into his body, feeling like he’s going to hyperventilate.

The shock-wave from the force of Changmin slamming the bedroom door in his face is still ricocheting in his body — the hammer-stiff impact contrasting sharply with Changmin’s gentle tap on his back in the car-park.

Could Changmin be telling the truth? What if Yunho had dreamt the whole thing up in a stressed induced stupor?

Changmin’s tablet showed no videos and he had an an explanation for everything: his phone, the message, the living room, the hotel.

Yunho gets out his phone, _I can check his expense accounts to see if he checked into a hotel on that evening, but what if he paid in cash or used his personal card? Did he even go to the hotel in the first place? Maybe I should check security camera from our Japanese residence if he really returned that night._

What about that email address Changmin sent the videos to? Yunho frowns, he should’ve checked Changmin’s email when he had access to his tablet—

He feels nauseous, his eyes are drying out from wearing his contacts for too long and his nose has been runny since he left Changmin’s place.

There’s no indication on the forums as to the existence of the videos, was it because Changmin never sent any videos to anyone in the first place. Yunho covers his mouth. _Did I hallucinate Changmin doing all those things, swearing and cursing, and masturbating and trashing our apartment. And crying, did I really conjecture Changmin crying into a guitar because of our argument._

It doesn’t add up. He had never known his imagination to be so vivid. And even work right now is not at its most stressful period. His relationship with Changmin is complicated, but not to the extent where it might take over his grasp on reality—  

 _Are you sure?_ The dark voice asks in his mind. _You yelled at sasaeng fans for no reason. You didn’t sleep last night. You sat in the middle of the living room convincing yourself that you don’t belong in an apartment you have lived there for almost four years. You yourself has concluded that you are inadequate at maintaining any kind of personal relationship. Are you sure that all this time, you haven’t been tethering on the brink of madness, cracking from the the stress built up in your life?_

_Would it be really a big of a stretch for you to imagine these videos when you are clearly distressed about your relationship with Changmin?_

No, Yunho suppresses his self-doubts. It’s not just the circumstances of the past few weeks— Changmin’s behaviour tonight is also strange, especially after Yunho has confronted him regarding the videos. He refused to let Yunho check his network but handed over his tablet willingly. He evaded querying Yunho for the details of those videos before dismissing them all together. And his anger, though abrupt and intense, is amiss.

Changmin could also be lying to Yunho. He could have deleted the videos on his tablet, which would also explain why he refused to let Yunho check his network. Plus, Changmin didn’t even ask why Yunho freaked out over a black plastic bag, subconsciously it didn’t raise a flag for Changmin, maybe subconsciously he was also alarmed by its presence.

Yunho hasn’t doubted the authenticity of those videos until Changmin’s refutations, because even though without the substantiating visuals of the video, the contents of the videos seem out of character for the Changmin he sees everyday, the Changmin in videos is somehow truer— more sincere than the Changmin in that apartment tonight. The collected and emotionless creature who didn’t even frown when Yunho admonished those fans and confronted him about the videos is a front. The videos revealed a part of Changmin that Yunho has only managed to glimpse on the rare occasion when Changmin’s ward momentarily crumbles. And even though Changmin doesn’t cry in front of Yunho anymore, Yunho can see the genuineness behind Changmin’s tears, hear the unfeigned pain in Changmin's sobs over the melody of _‘Over’._

It would actually be easier if all of the videos turn out to be a part of his own reprobative imaginations, he’d be dealing with his own familiar demons instead of the possibility that the videos are indeed real and do indeed exist despite Changmin’s denial, and has indeed been sent to a third party.  

Yunho sucks in the cold air from inside the cab, he clutchew his own head, feeling like it's going to burst open.

 

* * *

 

 

An incomplete glossary: 

  
_Dai-kyou_   —'great curse'; the worst lot to draw in Japanese _omikuji_ fortune telling

 _Chokusetsu aitai —_ I want to see you in person / I want to meet in person 

 _tanoshimi kudasai —_ please enjoy

 

 

 

 


	4. Virulence

 

By the time the taxi pulls into his apartment complex, Yunho is so distraught that he almost hands the driver Japanese Yen for the fare.

A wave of nausea overcomes him as he exits the vehicle. Yunho grapples for a wall to support himself. The building complexes in the residential park warp above him,  the dark shapes of the towers toppling against each other. Beyond, the ochre and opaque clouds — polluted by the light of the city, spin in an elliptical vortex. Yunho scrapes his hand along the icy concrete, the hard and uneven surface roughening his ungloved palm as he staggers into his building.   

As soon as he unlocks the door to his apartment, Yunho lurches over to his luggage which has been left in the middle of the living room. Yunho fumbles through his suitcase, flinging articles of clothing from the jumbled mess until he gets a hold of his laptop.

He clutches the machine close to his body for a second, kneeling there in the unlit room trying to subdue the tremors quaking through his body. What is he going to find when he opens the file explorer? Is it going to be like earlier this evening, with that plastic bag, where he had expected evidence of Changmin’s deviance but only to be confronted by a void outlining the shape of his own insanity?

The thumbnails are present when he opens the folder containing Changmin’s videos, collating grid-like in chronological order, like battalions lined up at an army march.

Yunho almost drops the laptop. He sets the machine down on the floor unsteadily, then stands up, and, like blocking choreography when he’s on stage, he steps across the disarray of objects strewn about in his living room like an elaborate labyrinth —  the semi-opened cardboard boxes overflowing with miscellaneous chattels shoved against the walls, his luggage in the centre of the room on its side, its contents blossoming out of the half-unzipped opening like spilt innards out of a carcass, his sofa — still wrapped in plastic— which is now dotted with specks of dust from his week of absence.

He meanders back to where the laptop is in the centre of the room, crouches in front of it, and queues all of the videos in a playlist. Changmin looks his way from within the screen, expressionless, his eyeglasses reflecting bright squares of the monitor, his skin tinted pale blue.

Yunho’s legs give out from underneath him as he collapse onto the ground, his palms hitting the floor in the process. He hisses as he pushes himself up, adjusts his posture, hugs his knees as he huddles there in his overcoat as a sense of _déjà vu_ envelopes him: it was not unlike this night when Yunho discovered the videos for the first time — the dark umbral corners of his living room, the scattered personal effects around him, the laptop casting a frosty halo of light onto the wooden floorboards that don’t quite reach the occupied corners of the walls, and the chilled vapours on the window diffusing the light from the city below.  

Yunho sheds his coat, kicks off his shoes, and turns on every single source of light he can find in the room. His eyes tear up from the increased lumen. He switches his AC to max and lets the warm air blast noisily across his face.  

The glaring brightness dims the image on the screen. Yet, even in the low contrast and bad lighting, there is not a sliver for doubt as to who the person is in the video.

Changmin blinked, espresso-brown eyes scanning the monitor in front of him. Was he reading the messages from the sasaeng fan? Did he notice something inauthentic? Was Changmin, like Yunho, questioning the realness of the substance on the screen in front of him?

Yunho slows the video to a quarter speed, increases the contrast, adjusts the colour levels and zooms in, scrolling across the enlarged picture to detect any evidence of digital alteration or graphic manipulation — like the ones that MV directors might be able to insert — but he can’t find any.

He doesn’t possess that level of expertise.

If these videos are indeed fabricated, the creator sure did an incredibly convincing job at replicating Changmin’s likeness and mannerisms.  

As if in echo to that sentiment, Changmin in the video peeled off his shirt and slouched back into his chair, his movements stilted due to the altered speed.

 _‘I knew you’d like that.’_ Changmin’s voice, alien and chthonic due to the modified tempo, slurs through the laptop speakers like sludge.

Cyan blind spots bleed out from the image, obstructing his vision. Yunho rubs his eyes, the screen deforms with the motion of his fingers. Changmin’s face distorts, bulges out of the screen like a three dimensional menace, and when Yunho rubs his eyes again, it disappears all together in front of him.  

He can’t substantiates the reality, Yunho covers his eyes, even though the videos look completely real to him, he can’t confirm whether what he’s looking at is real or conjured by his mind, if he’s in fact just staring at the blank screen of his laptop and projecting a hallucination.

Changmin’s mouth yawns and grimaces through the no-longer recognisable profanities, the muscles on his torso constricting and expanding, pronounced yet fluid with each frame transition. Yunho’s hands close into a fist. He’s aware of every infinitesimal sensation travelling through his body, from the dryness of his nose and mouth due to the air-conditioning, to the quivering in his limbs, to the slight sheen of sweat that is starting to prickle at the back of his neck.

He feels wooden from the past week of travel, his joints sore from the lack of proper rest in the past two days, and there is an inexplicable ache that is settling deep inside his body. _Just like that other night,_ he was just as exhausted as now when he watched these images the first time — and fatigue was also prominent the night Changmin stayed at that hotel — he had a pretty intense work-out session beforehand — and that other one from the night when he met his sister following those insane weeks in Japan, last night, _only a day ago—_

There seems to be a pattern of physical exertion and discovering these videos. Yunho smacks the side of his face repeatedly. Then presses his fingers into his temples until they tremble from the force.

He pauses the video. Changmin gazes into the camera, his face twisted in a snarl. Yunho searches for his phone until he locates it within his coat that is heaped on top of his shoes beside him in a pile. He double checks that it’s not locked, and snaps a picture of the laptop screen.

Curved lines of interference mar the pale-blue of Changmin’s face in the image. Yunho’s fingers spasm as he searches through his contacts for Changmin’s number.  

He sends the photo to Changmin, and when he starts composing an accompanying message his fingers shake too much for him to type on the touchscreen.

He takes a deep breath, the air-conditioning wheezing in the background, the computer fan whistling beside him, he presses his phone into his chest and tries again when he feels his heartbeat regulate.

 _-Explain.-._ He types, before deleting the full stop and adding a _‘please’_.

No, he needs to expound on what he just sent to Changmin - Yunho deletes the message and starts again. _-Would you like to tell me what this is all about?_ -

No, not specific enough. Yunho deletes the message again, his knuckles crack when he hits the backspace button on the touchscreen too rapidly.

He’s able to take a photo of the video with his phone — surely this proves that they are not just a part of his imagination. Yes, he is tired, and yes, he did just have an exhausting week on top of a few exhausting months in yet another exhausting year, but he doesn’t feel drained, his body and mind are stretched taut, the aches in his body acute, his heartbeat and breathing loud and clear and consistent in his ears. There is no reason why he should be hallucinating a surreal situation not dissimilar to one of his stress-induced nightmares.

 _-Changmin are you seeing the photo I just sent you and can you please tell me I’m not imagining things but also if you can’t see anything which means that I am having a hallucination can you also tell me as well that you see nothing because this way I can confirm if I am crazy or not…_ -

Yunho erases the string of nonsensical gabble and falls backwards, stretching his arms out as he lies on the ground, staring at the ceiling with its retina-burning spotlights.

He opens the image he just sent to Changmin, the screen looks impossibly dark and Changmin's features are barely distinguishable. _Maybe I should have edited the photo before I sent it, brightened it or increased the exposure digitally so the subject matter is clearer—_

He scrolls up until he sees the message he sent to Changmin the night after he stormed off from the Izakaya, at the digital _‘message read’_ indication. AVEX would be able to confirm whether Changmin was taken from the residence the morning after he sent this message — his manager or their driver would probably remember. He could also retrieve security footage from the Japanese residence — there are cameras in the elevators and at the reception. Changmin had asked Yunho on their flight to Fukuoka whether Yunho was still _‘angry about last night’_. And Yunho can almost see in front of him the discoloured circle the same dimensions as the base of the floor lamp that used to be situated against the window, in the living room of their Japanese residence in front of him.

Yunho lets out a deep breath, deflating his entire torso from his ribs to his guts. _I’m not imagining things, I wish I were, I want to believe Changminnie so,_ so _much. But this — this is real._

There’s no _‘message read’_ indication. Yunho double-checks his connectivity and phone settings and refreshes all his networks, still no indication that Changmin has received or has seen the photo. Most likely, Changmin is asleep right now and has turned his phone to _‘do not disturb’_ , or he is intentionally ignoring messages sent by Yunho.  

He glances at the door, then at his phone, at the blank space in the _‘send’_ box where he had deleted all those half-formed messages. He contemplates driving to Changmin’s place. He has a spare set of keys to Changmin’s apartment, he’s able to barge into Changmin’s bedroom, shake Changmin awake, shove the laptop in front of him and force him to watch the videos with Yunho and — and unlock the floodgates to the oceans of unexpressed sentiments between the two of them.

He wants to confront the Changmin in these videos, the facet of Changmin formed by the various vignettes that Yunho never thought he would be able to encounter — a reaffirmation, almost, of what Yunho had always suspected were Changmin’s true sentiments.

Yunho charges into his bedroom. He retrieves a large collection of keys linked to each other by chain-mail-like key-rings from his nightstand. He sorts through them until he finds the one to Changmin’s apartment, cuts himself as he dislodges it from the abominable cluster and drops to his knees next to his bed.

Even if he does drive there, even if he manages to get past the security in Changmin’s building and ride the elevator up to Changmin’s floor, even if he were standing outside of Changmin’s apartment right now — he wouldn’t be able to unlock the door.

He couldn’t.

It’s not his house.

And Changmin has already ordered for his expulsion.

Yunho pinches the key in between his fingers, so light, almost negligible in weight, its presence ebbing when he closes his fist around it, its existence only substantiated by the light edge of cold against the skin in his palm.

It’s not a physical lock that is keeping Changmin from him.

His stomach convulses, like there are lumps of hot coal slowly blistering the lining. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything to Changmin — in the van with Changmin’s bony shoulders digging into his side, on the plane with the dusk-sun gilding Changmin’s face, couldn’t bring it up the entire time they were in Japan, and he waited for the worst moment to do so. And Changmin had flat out lied to his face.  

When had they become so closed off to each other? They spend almost every single minute of their waking hours together yet almost never talk about anything unrelated to work. Yunho can’t recall the last time he really made an effort to obtain access to Changmin’s thoughts. And Changmin would rather cry to a stranger on the other end of a webcam than talk to Yunho.

Yunho had always assumed that they understood each other on a completely different level, that their relationship exists beyond the ability of elaboration, that words are not needed between them.

_I’m wrong, though._

It’s not osmosis.

It’s distance.

In fact, all Yunho has are a whole lot of inconsistent half-truths and even more blatant deceits, ambivalent behaviours, a key that opens nothing, and all these disjointed video-clips of Changmin’s malice and weakness that aren’t even intended for Yunho.

_This is the result of attempting to have some semblance of independence and give him a sense of space. This is not the outcome I sought._

_This is not what I want, not what I want at all._

Outside, lights flicker off in the windows on the building opposite his own. What is Changmin doing right now? Is he asleep? Is he fuming about Yunho’s behaviour from today? Is he also looking out of his window into the dark night, studying the shadows of the branches and leaves blemishing the planes of glass separating him from the unforgiving cold of the late autumn?

He knows that Changmin must still be angry with him, that he’s probably the last person Changmin wants to be with right now, but he can’t help it, he wants to call Changmin, talk to him, drive over to Changmin’s apartment and never leave again.

 

*

 

Yunho texts his manager just before dawn breaks over the horizon to inform that he had stayed at his own place and will be driving to the office so there’s no need to send a driver from the company.  

His manager’s text-response arrives as he’s pulling out into the morning traffic:  - _Do you have anything to do with his decision?-_

Yunho is tempted to call his manager and ask him to elaborate on the message but decides it’s better to talk to his manager face to face.

There is still no _‘message read’_ notification for the picture he sent to Changmin.

When he gets to the SM building his manager is waiting for him in the garage. Yunho double-checks and triple-checks that he has packed his laptop in his day-bag before getting out of the car.

When Yunho asks as to the meaning of his manager’s text his manager furrows his eyebrows: ‘You mean you don’t know?’

‘Is this about the incident at the parking lot under Changmin’s apartment yesterday? I—’

His manager waves him off. ‘Hold that thought for one moment, are you telling me that you don’t know what’s going on with this either?’ He shows his phone to Yunho.

Changmin sent his manager a few images via text last night, time-stamped to be about an hour or so after Yunho has left Changmin’s place. Changmin has included a photo of a signed _‘Request for Leave’_ form with indefinite dates and incomplete sections, under the _‘reason’_ column he has written: _‘vacation’_ in scrawling, barely-legible hangul.

A sharp blade of coldness pierces the back of Yunho’s skull, sending stinging sparks down his spine. Yunho’s manager meanwhile shoves his phone back into his pant pocket. ‘I thought that you might have filled out this form from the terrible writing, but since you didn’t stay over at his place, I’m assuming that you left before all this happened? Do you have any idea where he might be?’

Yunho moves his head, uncertain whether to nod or to shake.

His manager raises a hand and pinches the skin between his eyebrows, deepening the preexisting frown lines. ‘Look, I don’t really know what is going on exactly and why you two are acting this way since your return from Japan: maybe this year has been tougher for you two than we projected and you are feeling the toil of the last few months, or you just want to take breaks now before the batch of end-of-the-year concerts. But I mean, this is just poor form! I didn’t even know we that we still use _‘Request for Leave’_ forms—’

‘Hyung, I—’ The words scrape along his esophagus as his mind races to form them into coherent sentences that just won’t come to him. His manager meanwhile prattles on.

‘—I had to go to China, OK? I had to fly to Guangzhou where the smog was absolutely horrendous and had me hacking up grey phlegm all the while I was there. And we go live in 10 days so not telling us for how long he’ll be gone is just inconsiderate at best and—’

He can barely concentrate on what his manager is saying. The cold metal edge his car keys presses into the flesh of his palm. At the tip of his tongue, the confession as to the contents on his laptop prickle like a thorn in his flesh.

His manager must have noticed how pale Yunho has become. ‘He didn’t tell you anything, huh? It’s to be expected I guess. It’s a bit unusual isn’t it, for him to leave so abruptly. Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that you managed to terrorise some sasaengs last night? Which, by the way, is no longer an issue you need to worry about; I told management that I gave you a scolding already, you can probably expect an email from HR and not much more. Others have done worse and gotten away with less.’

His manager lets out a soft sound close to a chuckle, ‘Yunho-ya, you look so pale. Look, I’m more vexed than angry right now. Sorry for overreacting. We’re going to have to do some creative back-looping but should be able to manage without Changmin for the next few days-’

‘I have to go.’ The words glug out of him, jolting his body from being frozen rigid as he turns to unlock his car. ‘Sorry hyung, I need to go look—’

His manager stops Yunho, pulling at his forearm. ‘Go— go where? Are you going to find Changmin? Do you know where he is going for his vacation?’

Yunho scrapes his thumb along the grooves on his car keys until they leave an indent in his finger just under his nails, resisting the urge to throw his manager’s hand off his arm. ‘I don’t know where Changmin is but if I leave now I might be able to catch him before he leaves his apartment.’

‘Do you know something?’ His manager pales. ‘Is there a reason why he shouldn’t be on leave?’

‘I—’ The thorn prickles at his tongue, he licks his gum, tasting a phantom copperiness on the roof of his mouth. ‘I’ll explain later. but right now I need to leave—’

‘No,’ His manager blocks him, putting himself between Yunho and his car. ‘You won’t catch him in his apartment, and it’s absolutely unacceptable for the both of you to be absent the day you come back from Japan.’ Noticing that Yunho is still fidgeting, he drags Yunho half willingly into an enclave to the side of the car-park. ‘That was the first place I checked after I received his messages.’ His manager urged in a suppressed whisper. ‘I sent a car to his place and he was gone by this morning.’

‘Someone’s at his house.’ Yunho croaks, his heart dropping into his stomach.

His manager nods. ‘Yeah, I sent an assistant at six today to check if everything’s OK. His place doesn’t seem disorderly, in fact, most of his luggage from Japan is still there on the couch, according to the assistant.’

‘An assistant?’ Yunho echoes, he’s having trouble hearing his manager’s words over the noise of blood rushing through his eardrums.

‘Yes, and if he comes back then the assistant will be able to let us know. So there’s no point for you to go over there.’

‘He’s still there, at Changmin’s place? The assistant?’

‘Of course he’s still there!’ His manager snaps, ‘I told him to stay until Changmin comes back from this blasted vacation of his accord but for the time being you need to be—’

‘Hyung, he can’t stay there!’ Yunho tries to fling his manager’s hand from his arm but his manager holds on. ‘I promise I’ll explain everything but right now, right now you need to let me go to Changmin’s place! M-maybe there’s an itinerary or, or something he’s left behind but SM shouldn’t be — and — and I need to go, hyung, _please_ , this is — it’s —’ Yunho wipes his forehead where sweat is streaking into the hair at his temples. His manager squeezes his arm.

‘Are you OK? Is there something we should know about this vacation of his?’

 _He’s not on vacation!_ Yunho screams in his mind. But of course he can’t say anything to his manager, and he can’t allow the company to get even the slightest idea of what might be happening. Changmin, Changmin could be anywhere, the stalker could be anywhere in Korea, or Japan, or China, or —

Yunho heaves, but still feels like he’s out of air. ‘I need to go find him, hyung, at least, try to, and I need to leave _now_.’

‘Absolutely not.’ His manager says resolutely. ‘You can’t both disappear without any notice. The higher-ups will get suspicious.’

‘I don’t care right now!’ Yunho tries to pry his manager’s hand from his arm. ‘And I can’t let a stranger from the company stay at Changmin’s home like some kind of pa—’

His manager covers Yunho’s mouth. ‘Jung Yunho, will you calm down for just one second!’

Yunho glares at his manager. His manager keeps a firm grip on Yunho’s jaw. ‘What do you think they’ll do if they find out you are both gone today — the first day you come back for the Seoul concert preparation? Hm, Yunho? How do you expect to explain yourself out of that one? Tell them you’re too tired? Taking a breather? Recuperating? Convince them that there’s been a family emergency or something else not work-related but requires your immediate attention? Do you think they’ll believe any of that? Is there any possible chance that they’ll take it as anything else _other_ than that the two of you are meeting with the Japanese side out-of-schedule? Or are you going to go with the _‘I don’t need to explain myself I do what I want’_ attitude? Think of the implications Yunho, please, one of you has to.’

Strength drains from Yunho’s tensed body — if the company suspects anything of that nature—  

His manager, seeing that Yunho has stopped struggling, takes his hand off Yunho’s mouth, but he doesn’t let go of Yunho’s sleeve. ‘Now, I can’t physically restrain you if you really want to go. But unless you know where Changmin is, and is going to retrieve him right now, Yunho, having you run off like this on the day Kim-seonsaengnim is scheduled for a visit is just going to be trouble for both of you. Please.’

Yunho stands there, sucks in breath after breath in the stuffy car-park as he wants for the quivers to pass through his body.  

He covers his eyes, there are no videos or broken floor lamps or expressionless lies in the SM building, but he still feels like he’s trapped in the oval rug of Changmin’s apartment like a circus animal. It’s not dissimilar to being in the middle of a stadium, on the stage, flood-lights blinding him, blunt darkness beyond the perimeter of the stage, and no way to retreat into the shadows.

Yunho’s manager guides Yunho with the hand still on Yunho’s arm. ‘Let’s go somewhere to talk. Changmin’s manager won’t be here til nine and it looks like we need to make heads and tails of the situation. Just — don’t take off, OK, Yunho? One of you needs to be here at the very least. Do you understand what I’m getting at?’

Yunho nods. ‘I’m just going to take some things from the car.’

His manager looks around them, checking the shadows even though the car park is almost completely vacant. ‘I think my office is empty for the time being.’

 

Yunho’s manager sets a foam cup down in front of Yunho, the ricy aroma rising in wispy steam from the bori-cha, pervading the cramped office space. ‘Drink.’ He instructs, ‘Don’t burn yourself.’

Yunho takes a sip. Surprisingly, it does make him feel better.

He’s seated on a swivel chair, squashed in the narrow recessed space between two desks, when he adjusts he crashes into the multi-layered cluster of filing cabinets that crowd against the wall.

Yunho whips his head around at the sound, his hands clutching the tea. ‘I didn’t even know SM had these kinds of offices.’

Yunho’s manager closes some of the drawers behind Yunho that have opened due to the collision. ‘Well, you spend the majority of your time in rehearsal rooms or up on Level 13 with the big boys. Someone has to run this place — feed the furnace, man the fort — so to speak, and we can’t have every intern stepping into this building go running to you guys for autographs.’  

Yunho wants to reach out and swipe his hands across the green glass shade on the brass banker-style lamp, it looks like a prop out of those decades-old detective movies. ‘We still have paper filing?’

Yunho’s manager perches against the desk opposite Yunho, leaning almost into a stack of papers. ‘Always better to keep backup copies somewhere offline and out of the servers—’ His manager says, shuffling the piles of paper and shoving them into a paper-tray with perhaps too much force. He offers Yunho no further explanation.

Yunho continues sipping his tea as they apricate in the morning sunlight that’s able to saturate the office through the horizontal shades on the high windows despite the presence of the heavy overcast that is threatening a low-front’s arrival. Yunho finishes his tea and sets the empty cup down, straightens, and puts his hands on his knees.

‘Hyung, how long has it been since we started working together?’

His manager squares his shoulders, and folds his arms across his chest. ‘So, we’re going to play this hand now are we?’

Yunho meets his manager’s eyes and nods once.

‘You’re not going to tell me what’s going on, but you want a favour.’ Yunho’s manager implores.

Yunho exhales, and holds the gaze.  

His manager sighs deeply. ‘Well, Jung-sshi, given that I’ve developed back problems that’s serious enough for me to go see a chiro once a fortnight from having to literally carry you on my back at times, and that there’s fourteen months of docked pay that I’ll likely never be able to recover from the company, and in addition to all of that, my daughter said your name before she’s able to manage to say her own — I’d say we’ve been working together for a stupidly long-ass time, pretty much since forever would be my estimate.’

Yunho feels that his manger should be wearing suspenders and growling at Yunho, saying something along the lines of _‘I’m too old for this shit’_ in a that tough-and-angry-police-captain kind of voice from those detective movies.

His manager continues: ‘And I don’t think I need reminding of the amount of plights I’ve had to undertake because of this god-forsaken position— you’re sitting in the middle of all the evidence you’ll ever need, and now I’m guessing you want my blind trust — because of the fact that I’ve been your manager every since your cherub-cheeks, snaggle-teeth days? Well Yunho let me ask you this, why is it that I have to trust you in this situation yet you won’t trust me enough to tell me what in the hell-fire conflagration is going on? First you go off at a sasaeng-fan, then I get this absurd message from Changmin, and now you are fidgeting like someone stuck a hedgehog up your posterior — insistent on finding him this minute but won’t let the company get involved in the search!’

‘I do trust you, hyung.’ Yunho says, his manager stops flailing his arms at Yunho’s words. ‘But this isn’t about trust. Hyung, Changmin messaged you for a reason, I bet that he didn’t even let his manager know.’

His manager clenches his hands into fists. ‘You know very well what happened the last time things got this cryptic.’          

‘I’m not being cryptic.’ Yunho shakes his head. ‘And this, this is not related to that.’ He reaches out and takes his manager’s arm with both hands, rolling forward to where his manager is standing. ‘I need your help.’

His manager’s eyebrows furrow, before he pinches the bridge of his nose.

‘It’s a pretty damned big favour you’re asking, Yunho-ya.’  

‘The biggest, I’m cashing in the big ones this time.’

His manager pulls his hand out from Yunho’s grasp, before rubbing his cheeks. ‘What do you need?’

Yunho fiddles with his car-key in his pant pocket, the metal has warmed and is sticking to his skin.

‘Time, I need time.’

His manager pulls up a chair, sitting down opposite Yunho, one foot tucked under his other knee. ‘We can’t go with that vacation excuse for him. Best to tell the staff that the vacation-leave is a front for sending him to hospital, it should buy us some time with management.’

‘How long?’

‘Three, four days, tops. But you need to stay for that duration of time.’

He raises a hand. ‘No, Yunho, listen to me. Right now I’m expending all my energy not to think about the worst. I don’t know how much you know or why you think you must find him, and god I don’t even want to imagine what he could possibly be up to since he’s clearly not taking time off — _vacationing_ —

‘But Yunho, please, consider it from the company’s perspective for a moment. We’re coming from the same place and I’m trying to mitigate the damage here. Yunho, I don’t want the company involved in this either, but if you two were both suspiciously absent so close to a live, on the day you are supposed to be back on Korean schedule after finalising the year with AVEX? When you haven’t ever cancelled a rehearsal before, even when you twisted your ankle, even after surgery?’

Yunho opens his mouth but his manager continues without pause, ‘We work so hard, Yunho, why do you think my office is cramped in this basement instead of being up on thirteenth with you? Why do you think we keep a paper copy of all our minutes and schedules down here, it’s not to collect mildew.’

Yunho looks at the filing cabinets that give off the same silver-chrome sheen as the bonnet of his car, at his manager’s worn face, at the swarms of dust that has become visible due to the filtered sunlight.  

‘For today, only today.’

His manager shakes his head. ‘No, Yunho. If you do know where Changmin is I suppose a few hours can’t hurt but—’

Yunho grits his teeth. ‘Hyung, no one needs to remind me just how much hell we go through in order to keep the entity alive and breathing, but right now. I—’

He trails off, glaring at the window until he is almost blinded by the sun. The office closes in around him, the mountains of paperwork and storeys of filing drawers lilting, threatening to collapse on top of him.

Yunho tucks his fingers beneath his legs and twists them around each other, he sucks in a breath. ‘OK, I’ll stay.’

His manager seems to physically deflate as he let out a breath. ‘At least one half of the two of you is not entirely insane—’

‘But I’m leaving the minute we hear from him.’ Yunho interjects. ‘And that SM employee needs to leave Changmin’s place.’

His manager stands up, bearing down at Yunho.

Yunho twists the fabric of the chair's seat-cover between his fingers, his hands numb, the scored marks on his left palm stinging as he presses them into the mesh. ‘Please hyung,’ Yunho ponders whether Changmin took his tablet with him and stops his mind from contriving further assumptions. ‘If we need to start a manhunt for him, it’s another matter, but right now, the company shouldn’t be a part of this —’ Yunho suppresses a sudden blossom of heat in his chest. Changmin had made it clear that he doesn’t want Yunho in the apartment last night, but to have an SM employee there…

‘I can stay at his place, if you feel the necessity of having someone there. But we can’t have a stranger in Changmin’s home while he, I mean, in his absence.’ His ears ring as he feels like blood flowing the wrong way in his body. ‘Hyung, please.’

His manager purses his lips as he ponders Yunho’s request. Yunho swallows around the acidity in his mouth. Did Changmin give them a copy of his keys, how is it that Yunho cannot recall ever discussing something like this with him? Does the company have a copy of the keys to Yunho’s place as well? They must have, they dropped Yunho’s bags off last night —

‘Please, hyung.’ Yunho repeats.

Just as Yunho is ready to get up and kneel for his request, his manager says, ‘Fine, I’ll call the assistant. You should go to the practice room. I’ll deal with the rest.’

He sees Yunho’s expression and sighs. ‘I _will_ call him, Yunho, I’m obviously not going to do it in front of you. You just make sure that you are where you are supposed to be. Now go, don’t be late for your rehearsal.’ He takes the now empty tea-cup and stands to throw out the tea-bag, opening the door of the office in the process.

When Yunho bows his goodbye, his manager does not turn around.

Yunho drags his body through the damp and narrow corridor towards the elevator, his muscles leaden, and the last thing he thinks he’s able to do right now, is dance.

 

*

 

Through the strands of his sweat-soaked fringe, Yunho sees their choreographer Jaewon beckoning for him. He wipes his wet hair out of his face and joins the fellow dancer on the bench at the far-end of the studio. The choreographer hands him a cup of coffee. Yunho drinks and hisses when he burns his tongue.

The bitterness spreads in his mouth as Yunho swallows, catching his breath at the same time. ‘I know it’s bad for you,’ Jaewon says, ‘But I suspected that you might need the pick-me-up.’

Yunho nods, his mouth numb from the tartness and the heat.

Jaewon hands him a towel. ‘If it were me, I’d be dead on my feet by now after the week you’ve had in Japan, yet here you are, throttling forward not even twelve hours after you got off the plane. I don’t know how the two of you manage, Yunho.’

His mouth tingles with a sudden craving for sugar. He likes his coffee with the edge taken off — balanced between sweetness and bitterness like how Changmin had made it for him yesterday morning, before they left for Japan, after Changmin had lied to his face about why some crockery and a floor lamp were missing in their residence. Yunho wonders if Changmin has already made the decision to take off when they got to Korea at that time, or if it was more spontaneous, pushed forward by Yunho’s confrontation with him last night.

‘You’re always here before everyone, sometimes I think you are superman.’ Jaewon continues. ‘But I always come to the realisation that you are not and I worry for you, for Changminnie, as well.’

Yunho gives Jaewon a smile, forcing himself to concentrate on the conversation. ‘You do not need to worry about me, Jaewon-hyung.’

‘I suppose, but with Changmin now in hospital again, it’s hard not to worry.’

Yunho’s manager has only told a few key staff members the excuse they came up with for Changmin’s absence. Yunho wonders if Jaewon is amongst them or if the lie had manifested into a rumour and is beginning to spread like weed, either way, it brings heat to Yunho’s cheeks, who finishes his coffee and hides his face by pretending to examine the empty foam cup.

‘It’s not anything serious, I — I kind of used the hospital stay to give him a mandated break.’ The words out of his mouth astringent like the coffee he has difficulty drinking. The next few days are going to be just lies upon more lies.

Jaewon finishes his own coffee and throws the cup away. ‘The last time he was in hospital he insisted on being discharged almost as soon as he was admitted against the advice of everyone, including the doctor and all the managers, I’m glad you can at least get through to him.’

‘Which time was that?’ The breath that he’s managed to catch seizes in his chest, Yunho doesn’t remember a time when Changmin — the hypochondriac — disobeyed an order from a medical professional.

Jaewon sits on the ground opposite Yunho, crossing his ankles over each other. ‘Not long ago, while you were filming. He spent most of his time here when he doesn’t have other schedules. Did he not tell you?’

‘That he was in hospital? No.’

Jaewon strokes his chin. ‘That’s surprising. Maybe they didn’t want disrupt your filming. It wasn’t that serious, I suppose, if he was able to get discharged on the same day.’

‘What happened?’

‘He fainted during practice. We had to call an ambulance but apparently it was just fatigue, he didn’t have a good rest those few days. The hospital put him on some glucose IV and he insisted on leaving after he woke up a few hours later.’ Jaewon raises his elbow above his head in a slight stretch. ‘His manager and him had a big fight outside the practice room, we could hear it through three halls, quite a few trainees were spooked.’

Yunho resists the urge to grab the choreographer and demand every single detail regarding Changmin’s time spent during his absence. ‘I — didn’t know about any of that at all.’ He says into his empty coffee cup.

‘It must have been fine though, Yunho.’ Jaewon says in reassurance. ‘Because he didn’t need to go to the hospital again and he was a lot better after you came back despite the frequent lives. That being said mandated rest seems like a good idea no matter which way you look at it.’

‘Fatigue—’ Yunho digs his nails into the conical foam in his hands, staring at the ring of coffee stain around the small opening on the coffee lid to avoid glaring at the fellow dancer.

Jaewon meanwhile stands, puts his foot up on the barre and begins a deeper stretch. ‘Considering how little food he eats and how much exercise he does, it’s not inconceivable. He also puts in extra hours at the gym on top of the time spent dancing, he’s quite dedicated to his body, that one.’

Yunho throws away the now deformed coffee cup and joins Jaewon at the barre for his own stretches. He remember the first time he saw someone faint: it was during his trainee days, when he was touring with Dana-noona, they were in China, and one of the dancers from the troop just crumbled as he was stepping off the stage after the performance, his legs giving out beneath him. Yunho caught a glimpse of vacant eyes on a paper-white, expressionless face as the other dancers turned the unconscious dancer on his side and supported his neck in a practised, almost bored fashion. He was not yet sixteen, and he couldn’t understand how it was possible for someone to push themselves to that extreme.

It was later, after his own debut, when he had to run to the toilet to retch up the contents of his stomach after a particularly gruelling live, did he begin to comprehend just how severely demanding his particular career choice was to his body.  

He studies his own form in the mirror, pulls his lips back and bares his veneers at his reflection. Their physique is attached with a monetary value, and Changmin had insisted on taking the brunt of responsibility for their visual and had dismissed Yunho outright when Yunho suggested that he also go on a diet with Changmin.

 _‘—for safety, hyung’_ Changmin had said. _‘You tear ligaments almost twice a year from practice alone and your joints have been dislocated so much you can practically pop them out like Lego, god knows what’ll happen if you are low on energy and around heavy gym equipment. I don’t want our insurance premiums going any higher than it already has. Also, this way one of us can wine and dine the higher-ups if necessary, it makes good business sense you know.’_ He had tapped his temples and Yunho had laughed and secretly, guiltily felt relieved that there are some things he can just leave in Changmin’s hands and simply reap the rewards of Changmin’s labour.

He just never foresaw that the labour would entail Changmin pushing himself to this extent. Yunho buries his face in his hands, heat flooding his cheeks beneath his palms, the hot brand of shame searing in his mind.

‘Are you still good? We can take it easy today.’ Jaewon asks, noticing that Yunho has stopped with the stretches.

Yunho shakes his head.

Jaewon sighs. ‘I shouldn’t have told you, Yunho-ya. Changmin probably kept all this from you for this very reason.’

‘It’s not that, Jaewon-hyung. I just, I wish he had said something to me, and I should’ve noticed. He was weak and lethargic for the first few days when we dove right into prep for the upcoming tour after filming finished for me and I had gotten frustrated with him.’

Jaewon places a hand on his back. ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself for something you didn’t know.’

‘Still,’ Yunho leans his head against the mirror. ‘I should’ve noticed. This is not...’ His breath hitches and he cannot continue.

The choreographer slides his hand across Yunho’s back in a comforting gesture. ‘Yunho-ya, do you want to cut practice short today and go visit Changmin instead?’  

Yunho shakes his head. ‘No, let’s keep going, we need to finish.’ He straightens and hits his chest with his fist. ‘I’m fine to continue. It’s just— I’m sorry, Jaewon-hyung. I’m just in a terrible mood.’

Desperate, tethering to reality by a hair-thin piece of string, like someone has dragged his stomach out from his throat, like he’s being turned inside out, because of what has happened and what could be happening and nothing he can share with the fellow dancer in front of him.

Jaewon pats him on the shoulder. ‘You always push yourself too hard, Yunho-ya, you both do.’

Yunho nods as he sits down to kerb his dizziness.

_Yes we do, but —_

 

*

 

'Isn’t he supposed to be on vacation?'

The steam from the coffee fogs up his glasses and Yunho remembers why he doesn’t like wearing them. Siwon slings one arm across the back of the booth chair, his visage glossed by the steam, as if he just stepped out from a magazine cover, with his hair slicked back, like an American movie star.  

Yunho curls his hands around the coffee mug, sorting through the layers of truth and his own fabrications about Changmin’s whereabouts in his mind.

‘Well yes but—’

'So I thought you don’t contact each other during your vacations.'

Yunho takes off his glasses and cleans them with the edge of his shirt, 'Since when?'

'He didn’t talk to you when we were in Rome, and you never asked about him when you called me. So I assumed you guys don’t talk to each other during off time.' Siwon sips his macchiato, holding the saucer close as he lifts the cup to his mouth.

In the videos Siwon had uploaded on social media, Changmin had grinned in the Italy sunlight, his teeth white against his Mediterranean toasted skin as he held a greeting written on a piece of paper surprising Siwon with his presence. The Changmin in those precious few seconds seemed brighter than his own memories of Changmin in Italy — physically lighter, shadow-less. Yunho had replayed that video so many times until the warning light flashed to indicate his phone was low on battery.  

He can’t recall if that was how Changmin looked during their trip to Italy, if Changmin glittered or if Changmin grinned nearly as much. During their trip for _Ti Amo_ , the terrible fights he and Changmin had overshadowed other memories he had of Milan and the rest of their visit. The trip was squeezed in between the Tokyo Dome and Nissan Stadium performances and they were both exhausted from the tour and they blamed each other for everything, from schedule delays to the Tuscan heat, from technical mistakes to equipment malfunctions. He was constantly in Changmin’s way and had silently fumed when Changmin tried entirely too hard to enjoy the supposed vacation. He ended up spending most of the off-schedule time gossiping with the staff, as Changmin spent his with his head bent over, holding a bottle of beer at the bar, his gaze fixated on his phone.

They chatted and laughed in front of the camera, but off camera they found it hard to even look at each other. Changmin had batted away Yunho’s hand when Yunho tried to straighten his collar, and Yunho turned his back to Changmin when Changmin shot concerned looks at the amount of sweat Yunho was dripping onto their wardrobe.

It was miserable.

Siwon clears his throat, and Yunho apologises for the prolonged silence.

'Well, I don’t know his whereabouts.’ Siwon says as he finishes his beverage. ‘We haven’t really contacted each other after you two left for Japan at the end of last month, I’ve been on location filming and I haven’t had a chance catch up with anyone.'

Sitting there, in a khaki coloured coat and beige pullover, Siwon looks graduated from the pit of fire that is the music industry. Then again, Siwon had never truly belonged here, he was the prince who had stumbled in line with paupers by mistake and stayed because he had chosen to do so, he actually had a choice in the matter. Yunho tries to remember a time when Siwon had not looked so put together. Maybe he was less polished in his youth, but the degree of tardiness was incomparable to Yunho, who was essentially living in the practice rooms if not crashing on the couches at some friend’s place and even spending some nights at the subway station before being put into a dorm by the company to prepare for debut.

‘Maybe he just wanted a few days off.’ Siwon says, dabbing away the coffee marks at the edge of his cup. ‘Are you sure he ran off? Maybe he’s with Kyuline’

‘It’s just unusual for him to turn off his cell and not answer our calls.’

Siwon takes his phone out and tries Changmin’s number, waiting until the the voicemail message finishes playing before hanging up. ‘I haven’t heard from him since the last time you were in Korea. But I’ll definitely message you if he decides to contact me.’   

Yunho thanks Siwon for his time and offers to buy another round of beverages. Siwon politely declines, 'I’d love to spend more time talking and watching you burn your mouth with hot beverages, Yunho-hyung. But maybe another time when your hands aren’t shaking around that coffee cup and you keep glancing out the window like Changmin might just show up on the street-corner outside. Go talk to SHINee, or Kyuhyunnie, maybe, I know they had a secret party last night, Changmin might be simply passed out on a sofa somewhere right now.'

Yunho’s heart does a little lurch, was it really possible that Changmin was simply with his friends right now, that he really was on vacation instead of doing something drastic like confronting the sasaeng fan by himself? The glimmer of hope, as unlikely as it was, sends fluttering to Yunho’s stomach. Maybe he really did go and drink the unpleasant evening away and sent the _‘Request for Leave’_ form to their manager as some kind of twisted joke—

Yunho’s knees buckle as he staggers out of the booth seat. Siwon notices and courteously hands Yunho’s jacket to him.

Yunho turns back as he’s about to exit the cafe. 'By the way, I understand that you and Changmin are both applying for the police force, if he manages to get in and you are assigned—’

Siwon slings his coat over his shoulders. 'I know you want say something along the lines of ‘please take care of Changmin’ or ‘I trust him to be in your charge’. But honestly, I think Changmin would be probably taking care of me most of the time.'

This time it’s Yunho who’s biting back a knowing grin. 'You’ll find out soon enough, Choi-sshi.'

 

Minho won’t stop bowing, so Yunho has to constrain him in a hapkido hold. By the time Yunho has explained everything, Minho is still rigid, his shoulders hunched.

‘Well he wasn’t at the live last night, or at least I couldn’t spot him in the crowd, and the last time we contacted one another was three days ago. I hadn’t heard from him since then. Would it be better to ask Kyuhyun-sshi instead? Changmin-sshi seems—'

Yunho pinches the bridge of his nose. 'It’s really OK to leave out the honorifics Minho. I’m not on the clock right now.'

Minho bared his teeth at him in a grin. 'OK, well as long as my manager doesn’t find out. Hyung is always so strict with Changmin it gave me an impression that you are like that with everyone.'

His words gave Yunho pause. 'When was I strict with Changmin?'

‘Well, he always tells us that you’re too busy with work to join us, and he says things like: _'oh Yunho-hyung wouldn’t like this'_ or _'Yunho-hyung would kill me if I ate this'_ or _'No I have to go back or Yunho-hyung would punish me'_ —’ Seeing the look on Yunho’s face, Minho bites the tip of his tongue. ‘Sorry, hyung.’  

Yunho dismisses the apology with a flick of his hand. ‘He really said that?’

‘Especially when we drank.’

Yunho purses his lips. He purposely avoided these kind of gatherings as a way of giving Changmin space. As a result, he hardly ever speaks to Kyuline outside of work. Now the boy in front of him presents much less the image of a boy and more that of a veteran, his eyes showing the right amount of respect as he effuses forth mirth even though his shoulders are still strained.

Yunho puts a hand on Minho’s shoulders. 'Will you tell him to call me if he contacts you?'

Minho presses a hand against his chest. 'It’ll be the first thing I say, hyung, before I even greet him.'

Yunho thanks him, Minho taps a finger against his cheek, ‘Though, it is interesting how Changmin-hyung just suddenly decided to take a break right before a concert, I wonder what the reason could be, maybe he just wants a vacation from his inexorable leader?’ He winks at Yunho.

Yunho takes in a slow breath, then cocks his head. 'By the way, contrary to what your manager believes, which is that you went home straight away after the live last night, it looks like you had a good time at Kyuhyun’s party according to some candid photos Siwon-sshi showed me on his phone. I’m more than happy convince him to share a few on his SNS, you know how he loves the social media.'

Minho blanches, and starts bowing non-stop again. As Yunho is walking away a strange sense of pride inflates inside him from the image Changmin has painted of him in front of his hoobae.

 

After Yunho has knocked for so long he’s ready to give up and look elsewhere, Kyuhyun finally opens the door, though only for an inch. Rippling prismatic hues discolouring his face as he says: ‘I know why you are here and he’s not with me. I don’t know where he is’,  before slamming the door shut in Yunho’s face.

Yunho takes a step back, twice he’s had a door slammed shut in his face, twice, in 24 hours!

He stands there contemplating if he should knock again or just try for the door handle, or if it would be better for him to go and find another member of Suju or even their manager. The brief glimpse into the dressing room and the colourful lights bouncing off of Kyuhyun’s face is setting off alarm signals in his head. _Tread with care,_ he clenches his fist, takes a breath when Kyuhyun opens the door again and drags him inside.

Kyuhyun peers out into the hallway before closing the door behind them, Yunho is stupefied by the utter chaos that is the interior of Suju’s dressing room, or what Yunho believes to be Suju’s dressing room. It’s virtually unrecognisable from the room that Yunho frequented a mere few weeks ago. The once sparse white walls with flanking mirrors is now repainted to a navy blue with huge anime wall decals that climb all the way onto the remoulded ceiling where multi-faceted globe lights hung from it like some kind of eighties disco room, projecting colourful shades across the walls. The room looks dark, unusually small and is crowded with inexplicable columns and mounds of demonic-looking things.  

Yunho turns to Kyuhyun, slack jawed and unable to form a question. Kyuhyun is leaning against a ominous looking furry shape that resembles the carcass of a mammoth. He is massaging his temple with two fingers whilst fumbling for his phone, mumbling something along the lines of ‘Let me see if I can turn this off.’ Even in the disorientating lighting Yunho can see the bags under Kyuhyun's eyes.

When Kyuhyun turns off the ambient light the room is plunged in darkness. Yunho’s hand stretches, reaching for the handle of the room, but finds the light-switch instead.

As he turns on the overhead lights Kyuhyun lets out a pained groan, ‘oh god, it hurts, the light, it burns,’ he moans as he buries his face in the pile of fleece and faux fur no less strange now that the vivid colours and patterns are visible in the glaring light.

Now that the light has been turned on Yunho realises that the redecoration is the least unusual factor of the room: almost all the tables and make-up stations have been overturned, the chairs heaped haphazardly atop each other in a corner, obscuring where the en-suite bathroom is supposed to be located. A couch slants in the middle of the room, dividing the long room in half diagonally, covered by the pile of fleece and faux fur apparel which Yunho mistook for a mammoth carcass earlier. Every visible inch of the newly-vinyl-ed floor is covered in trash: open packets of potato chips, stacks of soju and beer bottles, and what looks to be a watermelon that has been partially dug out with a spoon; plastic cups stacked in columns rise above his head to the ceilings, bending, like palm trees. Silver streamers slithered from the overturned make-up stations, to the heaped chairs, to the floor, back over the piles of coats and onto the couch like snakes.

A black burr skitters from the shadows, Yunho yelps when it runs directly into his ankle and latches onto his jeans.

Yunho stares at the animal at his feet, opens and closes his mouth a few times, before finally asking. ‘Is this, is that, your — _cat_?’

Kyuhyun, struggling to stay up against the pile of fur, mutters a barely audible ‘No’ into the fabric.

Yunho attempts to detach the cat with little luck. ‘It’s not?’

‘Cat-sitting for a friend.’ Kyuhyun says, sliding onto his knees as he buries his head even further in the fleece. ‘He’s almost blind, runs into things sometimes, thinks everything is a jungle gym.’

With an audible 'rip', Yunho manages to detach the cat from his pants, he holds it, his arms rigid as the anime squirms in his grip. ‘Is, is that why the room looks this?’

‘Because I’m cat-sitting? Of course not, I had a party last night, is all.’ Kyuhyun pushes at the fabric until he can lift his head. He extends a hand, offering to take the cat from Yunho but when Yunho hands it to him the cat escapes out of their grasps, stretching his paws out as he jumps down onto the floor, Yunho catches a flicker of a tail before the cat disappears behind the sofa.

Yunho turns back to Kyuhyun, who has managed to somewhat stay on his feet and is now pinching the skin between his eyebrows in an effort to wake up.

‘Don’t you have a live coming up in a few days?’ Yunho asks.

Kyuhyun shakes his head. ‘Yes, in less than two days, and yes, it is my first solo live, and no, management does not know about the party, and no, I don’t want a talk from you about this or the upcoming live or the party for that matter.’ He gestures for Yunho to lend a hand in up-righting an overturned coffee table in front of the couch, Yunho helps, trying to ignore the stickiness of the wood.

‘By the way, Changmin’s not sleeping under that pile of onesies you keep glancing at out the corner of your eye, feel free to check.’

Yunho steps over the trash and the coffee table to the sofa, before circling it and pacing to the other side, eyeing the motley pile of fur and fleece with unease.

Kyuhyun lets out yet another groan. ‘Oh my god, I know it looks like a seal pile but it’s just clothes I swear.’ He kicks the clothes off onto the floor and staggers, Yunho catches his arm to prevent him from falling over.

‘See? No Changmin.’ Kyuhyun says, working his arm out of Yunho’s hold. ‘Now can you please sit because all this constant hovering is driving me crazy.’

Yunho deliberates about the indeterminable stains before realising that he’s going to have to discard the pants that he’s wearing anyway as the cat has shredded the hems, so he perches on the edge of the sofa uneasily.  

Kyuhyun climbs onto the coffee table, unheeding the various circular stains on the varnished surface. ‘Do you mind if I lie down? My head feels like a blender right now.’ He says before proceeding to pillow his hand under his head and curling in onto his side.

Yunho tries peers at Kyuhyun’s face. ‘Should I get you a coffee or something—’

Kyuhyun holds up a palm. ‘No, no, just—’ he makes a flourishing gesture with his hands indicating for Yunho to talk, all the while hiding his face in the curve of his elbows.

‘So he wasn’t at the party?’ Yunho says, facing Kyuhyun’s ear — the only visible part of his face right now.

‘Clearly from the state of these room, no.’

Yunho remembers the state of their Japanese residence in the video he saw before they left for Japan and bites the tip of his tongue.

‘So he didn’t show up here last night?’ Yunho asks after a beat. ‘He didn’t, drop by to say hi or anything…?’

‘...No.’ Kyuhyun says, his response lethargic, Yunho purses his lips, resists the urge to drag Kyuhyun up and make him converse properly.

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Haven’t seen him since he left for Japan, haven’t spoken since he landed last night when he texted me that he was with you.’

‘Are you sure he wasn’t with you last night? He —he didn’t show up to practice today and I’m not sure where he went.’ Yunho shoves his hands beneath his thighs and sits on them, wanting to dig his nails in something and shred.   

‘Well from the several versions of the story that I’ve heard circling around he’s either lying in a hospital bed or gone on a vacation in the mountains somewhere.’ Kyuhyun says, still refusing to look at Yunho or sit up. ‘I’ve even heard some trainees whispering that Changmin-seonbae has eloped with that pretty halfie-dancer noona with the pink hair. Pick one, hyung. I wouldn’t know any better.’

‘They’re, they’re not —’ Yunho feels his face flush and swallows. ‘Are you sure he’s not with you?’

‘You asked that already.’

‘Kyuhyun can you at least—’

‘Hyung,’ Kyuhyun interrupts him as he rolls onto his back, attempting to get comfortable on the wooden surface. ‘I have a hangover that feels like someone put a meat cleaver down the centre of my skull, I need to clean this place up before my manager gets suspicious and comes searching since I’m not at practice. I’m not sure why you are so insistent that he’s with me when you clearly know more than you let on. I haven’t seen him since the two of you left for Japan last month. I’m not privy to his travel plans, and I’m certainly not hiding him in some safe-house if that’s what you are getting at.’ He turns his face to glare at Yunho, his iris constricted due to the light and the white of his eyes bloodshot. ‘I’m not covering his tracks for him in some kind of great escape like in those spy movies. I. Don’t. Know. Where. He. Is. Also, now is clearly not a good time, in case you can’t tell, I have to get on with the aforementioned tasks after I sleep off this gargantuan migraine I’m sporting. So if you’re just here to propagate the storytelling then could you please kindly leave me to the aforementioned tasks and stop wasting both of our time, thanks bye.’

With that, Kyuhyun turns his back to Yunho.

 _Does he know?_ Yunho wonders as he sits tersely amidst the mess, studying the jut of Kyuhyun’s shoulder blades, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that he’s overstayed his welcome. Does Kyuhyun know about the sasaeng-fan, has Changmin talked about the videos and letters to any of his friends, to Kyuhyun? It seems extremely unlikely, yet, at the same time, it seems like the door Changmin had slammed in his face yesterday has shattered Yunho’s already destabilised preconceptions and now he feels like he’s dealing in the affairs of a stranger. The Changmin in his memories just as obscure as the placid smile in Siwon’s SNS video, or the person in Shim Jaewon and Choi Minho’s recollections.

Kyuhyun sits up. ‘I really don’t know where he is, hyung.’ He says, pulling his feet into the curve of his knees to sit cross-legged on the coffee table: ‘You’re not the only person he went radio-silent on. I called him no less than twenty times last night and if he really were on vacation or on bed rest he wouldn’t have ignored me.’

‘I believe you.’ Yunho says.

‘Then what do you want to know, Yunho-hyung?’  

Yunho takes his phone from his pocket and shows Kyuhyun the _‘Request for Leave’_ form that Changmin had sent to Yunho’s manager last night which his manager had forwarded to him. ‘He sent this to manager-hyung last night and he’s gone by this morning. We haven’t been able to reach him by phone or by email, and he’s not at his house.’

Kyuhyun’s face is guarded but Yunho can see a slight tension around Kyuhyun’s knuckles, its points white from where Kyuhyun is squeezing Yunho’s phone.

‘What really happened, hyung?’ Kyuhyun asks, giving Yunho’s phone back to him.

Yunho opens his mouth before closing it. He swallows, ‘We, had a rough patch, if you can call it that, in Japan, we’ve been fighting a lot and last night there was a situation involving some sasaeng fans.’ Yunho slides his hands beneath his thighs and sits on them. ‘We, had an argument, and he told me to leave, and I did. And—’ Yunho takes in a shaky breath, ‘And he sent my manager this form and we’ve been unable to contact him since.’

Kyuhyun shoves his hands into his pockets. ‘Sounds like he just needed a break from all the stress, you know, go to a hotel and sleep for a few days.’

Yunho knows that Kyuhyun noticed his bristle when he mentioned the word ‘hotel’ because Kyuhyun lets out a half chuckle. ‘Wow, that bad huh. You really do run a tight ship on your end, don’t you, hyung.’

Yunho shakes his head. ‘It’s not that, it’s just, it’s not something he does—taking unexplained breaks. I’m afraid he might be in some kind of—situation.’

Kyuhyun narrows his eyes. ' _What_ kind of situation?’

Yunho feels sweat start to collect at the back of his neck, beneath his collar. ‘I’m not sure, and this is just conjecture, but say, for example, if he received an anonymous threat from an anti, and then went to go after them—’

‘You mean like he’s going to find someone who sent threats to him?’

Yunho nods.  

Kyuhyun leans down, reaches for a foundation brush amongst heaps of trash beneath the coffee table, he starts fiddling with the bristles. Running his fingernails along the curvature. ‘You have some active imagination hyung. That doesn’t sound like something Changmin will do at all. I doubt he’d actually even acknowledge those kind of threats let alone respond to them.’

Kyuhyun is stippling the brush into his palm, shaking his feet back and forth as he asks. ‘What makes you suspect he might do something so extreme? Do you think he received some threatening letters?’

Yunho feels like a yoke is strained upon his neck when he shakes his head in deceit. ‘It’s just—a conjecture.’ He succumbs to the weight of the lie and drops his head.

Kyuhyun lets out a breath. ‘It’s a pretty unlikely conjecture.’

Yunho bites his cheek. ‘You’re right, that is pretty unlikely.

‘But I can’t help but think about these things, Kyuhyunnie,’ Yunho says after a beat, ‘what if he’s being threatened? What if he loses his mind and does something drastic?’

Kyuhyun combs his fingers against the grain of the brush. ‘Since when has Changmin put himself in that kind of volatile situation, hyung, isn’t he, like, the most cautious person you know? He is to me, anyway.’

Yunho pushes his tongue against the back of his teeth. ‘I just want to know—that he’s not in any kind of danger like that.’

Kyuhyun swirls the make-up brush around his fingers.‘I get that he hasn’t taken time off before without informing you first, but there’s a first time to everything, no? He’s an adult, he hasn’t needed you to take care of him for years.’

‘But I—’

‘I mean I get that him being missing might impede on your actual practice schedule. But Yunho-hyung, have a bit of perspective, here I am drinking my face off barely days before my live, my debut live, and you are almost a fortnight away from the next perf, which isn’t even the first of your tour, don’t you know the setlist like the back of your hand by now? I remember seeing the two of you do a run-through before leaving for Japan. As long as he shows up before next week—

‘I’m not trying to demoralise your work ethics here, but sometimes people take breaks.’

‘But with Changmin—’

‘Yes, he hasn’t done this before. You said that already.’

The sting returns to the tip of his tongue where the invisible thorn has lodged deep in the delicate flesh. ‘I just have a bad feeling about all this.’ Yunho says: ‘It just feels wrong that he doesn’t talk to me or anyone else before suddenly leaving, he’s not the type.’ He clenches his fists. ‘I’m just worried if he’s alright.’

‘You can’t take care of him all the time,’ Kyuhyun tosses away the now ruined make-up brush back onto the pile of apparels. ‘Even us maknae grow up eventually, you know.’

‘But I’m not, and we’re not just—we—’ Yunho runs a hand through his hair. ‘I just thought that he would talk to me, or at least if he’s with you—’

Kyuhyun is glaring at him, his lips pursed into a thin line.

Yunho's back stiffens, ‘What is it, is the cat behind me?’

‘Why would it be different if he were with me?’

Yunho jolts.

‘Well you’re his best friend, no?’

‘Implying that my relationship with him should be closer than the two of you?’

‘You are dong-gap as well and—’ Yunho adjusts his posture, the sofa is so lumpy he can actually feel the springs in the cushions.

‘And what, he’s going to come to me whenever there’s an issue?’

‘Well—’

Kyuhyun stands up, making Yunho jump at the abrupt movement. He shoves his hand in his hair and cradles his head, pacing back and forth in front of Yunho, before he sits on the coffee table again.

‘Can I be frank with you, Yunho-hyung?’

‘Of course you can. Wait, this isn’t you being frank with me?’

Kyuhyun props his elbows on his knees and leans forward. ‘You are a decent guy, and one of the most professional and dedicated artists I know. In many ways you’re an epitome of the ideal version of an idol, a beacon of paragon that enlightens and encourages us to be better than our best selves. But, sometimes, especially when it comes to Changmin, I truly despise you, nothing personal.’   

‘Excuse m—?’

‘I can’t believe that after doing at least twelve soju-bombs and having a hangover so bad I can’t even sit up straight right now I’m still the one with the clearer mind. Why do you think I’m not the one running around like a headless chicken the moment Changmin goes off the grid? Yunho hyung? I _bet_ you don’t know. Argh, you make me so frustrated sometimes.’

‘Well it’s totally out of the blue for him to…’

Kyuhyun ignores him as he continues. ‘If you and Changmin had communicated like healthy humans you would not be here postulating these improbable situations. If you two just talked, you would know that Changmin has been hanging by a tethering thread ever since you moved out of the dorms—maybe even before that.’

‘What?’ Yunho grips the edge of his seat.

Kyuhyun breathes through his nostrils. ‘I mean why are you coming to me now, telling me that Changmin is becoming closed off and non-communicative when he’s been this way for _years_?’

‘But this is the first time—’  Yunho murmurs, his chest tight and breath catching in his throat.

‘Do you really believe that Changmin is actually doing well, that him leaving is somewhat of a surprise development?’ Kyuhyun rests his face in his hands and rubs his forehead. ‘This is him trying to _fix_ things, Yunho. This isn’t him trying to run away this is him actually facing the darkness within himself and doing something about it.’

‘Darkness.’ Yunho repeats, his voice hoarse, the buzz of blood rushing through his body loud in his ears.

‘All this time, hyung, are you telling me that you actually think that his behaviour has been normal?!’ Kyuhyun’s face is deathly white, his cheekbones protruding and casting angular shadows across his face.

Yunho stands up, unable to remain seated. ‘What behaviour? Kyu, what are you talking about?’  

Kyuhyun also stands, gets up into Yunho’s face, and snaps, ‘I’m talking about how he can’t sleep alone, and that he overdoses on melatonin and insists that it’s for muscle building, and that he spends over twenty hours in practice room only to book a work-out session at the gym straight after. Did you know that he fainted? When you were off filming, he decided it was a good idea to go on a dehydrating diet and double his practice hours at the same time.’

‘He can’t sleep?’ Yunho rasps, feeling all the air being sucked out of his body.

Kyuhyun paces, his hands clenching and unclenching against his side. ‘He’d come over, to my place, back when you were still living together, and insist on crashing on my couch. He’d tell me that he wants to watch a movie together or play some Starcraft, but, well, I picked up on things he didn’t say, like how many times he checked his phone, or his absolute lack of response when we brought up anything work related. And that I could hear him tapping away on his phone well into the night and sometimes well into the morning. And during the first few months after you two moved out of the dorm, he was staying over so much I seriously considered moving to a place with a spare bedroom for him. And it became obvious that he was only coming over because you were spending a night at the studio or with a girl or going for a night drive.’

‘He used to go to your place when he can’t—when I—when he was alone?’

‘Amongst other things.’

Yunho feels a swell of nausea from earlier today, and the same airless lump that he’s had to swallow around since the morning, at the car-park, or possibly even earlier. ‘I had no idea.’ Yunho doesn’t know how to continue, did Kyuhyun say Changmin took melatonin for sleep?!

Kyuhyun throws his hands up in the air. ‘Of course you didn’t. You’re so unaware of the effects you have on him. And at the same time so at ease with your relationship you don’t even see what kind of edges of desperation you drive Changmin to!’

‘He’s like this—because of me?!’

‘Yes, do you have to have everything spelled out for you?!’ Kyuhyun’s hands are clasped together tightly behind his back, as if that if he let go he’d be shaking Yunho’s shoulders.

‘But, I thought he—’ _But he hates being around me, he’d rather go and talk to a stranger over webcam than face me._  

‘Maybe he’s finally finding some semblance of coping with this anxiety of being alone,’ Kyuhyun continues, not pausing to take breaths in between sentences. ‘Maybe this is his way of coping with the impossible. That’s my conjecture, anyway, hyung. It’s unlikely, but the moment he leaves you start running around like a headless chicken without considering what he’s actually going through. You look like death right now, do you know that? And this is coming from someone who just drank away his anxieties and feel like his eyes are about to be centrifuged out of his skull.’

Yunho swallows but the dryness in his throat is not going away. ‘Why didn’t he ever say something—’

‘How do you expect Changmin to say anything to you?’  Kyuhyun is almost yelling, ‘Do you think Changmin’s the kind of person who could ever even remotely think to burden you with his anxiety and insecurities. Do you think he could ever communicate anything other than utmost devotion when it comes to TVXQ? He values your aspirations much more than his own life, Yunho!’

Kyuhyun heaves, his hands rigid and in the air mid-gesture, still filled with unspent energy.

‘And you expect him to talk to you.’

Yunho sits down on the couch, heavily, his palm smacking against the lumpy seat cushion as the springs squeak beneath him. ‘You’re saying that I forced him into this—’ Yunho buries his face in his palms, there’s a pulsating pain pushing against his temple and his insides are doing fancy acrobats.

‘No.’

Yunho looks up, from this angle Kyuhyun’s face is veiled by shadows.

‘At least, not directly.’

‘But aren’t you—’ Yunho doesn’t even know how to phrase the question. ‘Aren’t you saying that he doesn’t, doesn’t want—’

‘That he doesn’t want to be a gasoo? That he doesn’t want to be in TVXQ?’

Yunho makes a choked noise in his throat. Kyuhyun sits down next to Yunho on the couch as silence descends upon them. The cat choose at that moment to jump into Yunho’s lap, scratching at his jeans.

‘It’s not that simple is it, hyung. It’s not just about what he wants. What any of us wants, after all, we’re all burdened by the consequences of our choices, our obligations to staff, the other members, the fans, the company, the industry, our families—our future. It’s not like anyone forced Changmin or you or me into this position. But, did we really have a choice, or are we simply here because of the fact that we avoided what we thought of as mistakes—’

Kyuhyun drops his head and adjusts his shirt, pulling his woollen pullover down when it has ridden up. ‘I don’t think Changmin really wants to leave, but at the same time, I don’t think you or him realise how much of a toll this—this strange duality you two have on him. He doesn’t have an out, you know, there’s just you for him.’

The cat makes an especially deep scratch and Yunho suspects that he’s finally worked through the pants and broken the skin on his leg underneath, but he doesn’t dare look down, can’t look away at Kyuhyun’s pale, crestfallen profile.

‘But it’s not like Changmin to ever complain about anything, let alone foster the thought of giving up. It sounds too much like defeat to him, and maybe he doesn’t even realise it himself—’

‘I don’t want that, I don’t want him to suffer because of me, or TVXQ.’ His own voice sounds distant, like it's being spoken by someone else from somewhere far behind him.

‘But it’s not your call, is it. He chooses to endure all this. And hasn’t he pushed you away when you tried to give him a way out? He probably threw a tantrum and worked himself harder when you mentioned anything about the end.’ Yunho feels a stab of iciness to his stomach as he recalls the shattered glass in the practice room as Kyuhyun continues, ‘I mean, look at how hard he tries to squeeze his army service in line with yours so he can resume activities with you as soon as possible. He’s on a path to destruction and there’s literally nothing anyone can do about it.’

‘Maybe if I—’

‘You what, you single-sidedly decide to retire, go solo? Do you think that will do him any good?’

‘But there must be something…’

‘No, there isn’t!’ Kyuhyun leans his head back until he’s lying on the backrest, staring at the ceiling lights. ‘I know, I know because I’ve tried, hyung. I’ve tried everything. But Changmin has never been open about this, ever. I’ve tried countless times to talk to him about this, I thought he was getting better when he stopped coming over to my place for no reason a few months ago, but accompanying that is his total refusal to even acknowledge his insane practice schedules. I even whisked him away to Jeju Island last month, thinking that I’d find some kind of opportunity to bring up the fact that he’s clearly pushing beyond his means and make him realise that he’s probably using the tight scheduling as some kind of tourniquet. But he barely said two words the entire journey. He was uninterested in any kind of activity, he spent half of the time sleeping and the other half indolent. And, and—’

Kyuhyun takes the cat from Yunho and puts it on his own lap. The rims of his eyes were bright when he doubles over and buries his face in the cat’s body.

‘I just, I just told myself that I had enough.’ Kyuhyun says into the cat’s fur, his voice muffled and quivering, maybe from the interference of the animal’s body or maybe from something else. ‘I left him alone, he was almost catatonic, Yunho-hyung, and I can’t believe I just gave up, I went hiking and drinking with friends while he spent the rest of the trip staring at the ocean and sitting spaced out in the car. One day I left the car with him and he drove out of town and just sat on the hood and stared at this hill in the wilderness. I checked the car’s dash camera, that’s literally what he did all day.’

Kyuhyun’s elbows are shaking slightly, but otherwise he’s still, cradling the dark creature in his arms, the cat strangely has settled down and is now curled upon itself. Yunho sits on his palms, letting the minutes pass, studying the precariously balanced stacks of empty plastic cups in the far corner.  

‘I mean I know he should probably be sorting out things for himself, or at least talk to someone of pertinence, I convinced myself that as an outsider I’ve done all I can but Yunho I can’t help but wish that I should’ve said something more, I should’ve pushed him harder.  I keep blaming myself for being too busy, maybe if I weren’t recording when you were on set for your drama. Maybe if I made him seek some kind of help earlier, maybe if I weren’t so dependent on him myself—’

Yunho’s brain pulsates against his skull as he struggles to piece together everything Kyuhyun has just said. All his memories of Changmin falling asleep at random places, his constant tiredness, his unwillingness to answer calls after he’s gone to rest—small things that can easily be attributed to fatigue from the extended hours at recording and practice that is just a part of their work but now appears glaringly unsettling with the newfound knowledge.

How long had Changmin needed outside help to sleep by himself? And why did he say nothing when Yunho suggested they move out?

 _‘He values your aspirations much more than his own life.’_ Kyuhyun had said, and yet Yunho had told Changmin that they say goodbye in their tenth year.

Those parts of Changmin’s life that he purposely keeps hidden from Yunho, that must be the darkness Kyuhyun is referring to, those malicious videos to that anonymous fan, hospital visits in an ambulance, nights spent at Kyuhyun’s place, awake, when he wasn’t working himself to the bone in the studio. Yunho wonders if Changmin ever sat on Kyuhyun’s couch on one of those nights when he didn’t know where Yunho would be and was too afraid to go look for him, trying to stop himself from drowning in thoughts about the worst scenarios—just like Yunho is doing now.

‘Kyu, you’re not to blame.’ Yunho says, slowly, finding the strength in his abdomen to contain his breath, keep it even, his vocal coach had said, like you are blowing out of the tiniest straw. ‘It’s me who needs to talk to him, I’m the only one who can do it.’

Kyuhyun looks up, his face deathly grey, bleached by the unflattering lighting amongst the cluttered dressing room.

Yunho finds his face relaxing into a smile, ‘I’m going to find him, Kyuhyunnie. It’s going to be OK.’

‘I get it now, it’s not on you, Kyuhyunnie, this is between me and Changmin.’

Yunho reaches a hand out to Kyuhyun and touches his shoulder. ‘And you’re going to be fine as well, Kyuhyunnie, you’ve already done more than enough for him. I’m the one who is the idio-’

Yunho sucks in a breath like it’s a gust of cold air, bringing with it the memory of Changmin’s shoulder, digging into his biceps as Yunho holds Changmin against his own body, in the back of the van on a cold autumn morning—‘ _Hyung is a pabo sometimes’_ he had said to Changmin, and again, in Japan, Changmin's bony hands in his own as he looks up at Changmin's almost disproportionately defined cheekbones, and now again sitting next to Kyuhyun, who is wearing the same expression of exhaustion and uncertainty mirrored in his own face. Yunho scrapes his fingers along the inside of his palm, feeling like he wants to crawl out of his own skin.

‘I’m going to find him.’ Yunho repeats, ‘I have to, no matter what. And I’ll bring him back, and we’ll both be there for you, for your live.’

He reaches and hugs Kyuhyun across the shoulders.

Kyuhyun stiffens, then hauls Yunho towards him, fisting his hand in Yunho’s jumper until his fingers almost pierce the knitting as a shudder passes through his body to Yunho's, who feels it, and hugs Kyuhyun tighter in return.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS. CHAPTER. UGH!
> 
> I'm so sorry for the delay of this chapter (shit it's been like half a year since the prev. one) but like, real life legit happened y'all. That and it took me like 20 drafts until I was satisfied with how this chapter reads (especially ONE SECTION, you can probably guess which one, gave me HELL, absolute HELL). And yeah I could probably have posted the chapter separately but I just felt like torturing myself. 
> 
> Thank you soooooooo much for leaving kudos and commenting you guys are the bane of my existence~
> 
> We're past the half way point now(hopefully)!! Let me know what you think! 
> 
> You can always yell at me at ebonynemesis.tumblr.com or https://twitter.com/ebonynemesis

**Author's Note:**

> I learnt all my Japanese and Korean from google, please point out anything inauthentic to you.


End file.
